All the President's Men
by Baroness Kika
Summary: Panem AU; When a scandal puts the oppressive Snow administration in its political grave, young, charismatic District Twelve representative Peeta Mellark is thrust into the role of President. As he and his staff struggle to serve a troubled nation, Peacekeeper Katniss Everdeen keeps a watchful eye on the only thing Peeta loves more than his country. Cover/Banner by Ro Nordmann.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: The following is a Panem-AU, set around the same time as the events of _The Hunger Games_. However, The Games are not a factor in this AU. ****I am not Suzanne Collins - characters and places from the trilogy belong entirely to her.**

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_**February**_

Peeta swishes the tepid tap water around his mouth, but it does nothing for the taste of bile still lingering on his tongue. All his life, he has prided himself that he never gets nervous in front of large crowds. He's always calm, collected, and as Madge used to say, "annoyingly confident", no matter how many eyes are trained on him.

Not today. Not when the crowd is this large.

He straightens his deep purple tie before shrugging on the basic black suit jacket and takes a deep, albeit shaky breath. He'd very much like to get this formality over and done with and get down to business already. The pomp and circumstance of today's festivities has the markings of the old Snow government all over it; every time he thinks about it, he gets more and more annoyed. He doesn't need a crowd and a speech and a parade; he needs a desk and a staff he trusts. He has the latter—they're stationed in desks and offices that comprise the north wing surrounding the Aula, where he'd much rather be as well. At least then he'd be getting _something_ done. After three long months of smiling for pictures, kissing babies, and shaking every hand in the room, it's way past time to get things moving.

"You look like shit run over twice, boy," Haymitch sneers when he walks into the room a second later. Despite the comment being utterly barbed, it makes Peeta laugh to hear. Haymitch wouldn't be Haymitch if he weren't insulting him somehow.

"Sure you're not looking in the mirror, old man?" Peeta returns. His mentor grins at him.

"You drink your breakfast or something? This place reeks," the man asks.

"I didn't have a chance to eat _anything_. Effie rousted me out of bed at 4 and only left me alone a minute ago. When I asked her if we could stop for something to eat, she said I'd have plenty of chances later," Peeta explains with a shrug.

"Foul woman, that one. You sure you want her as your EA?"

"I trust her. Same as I trust you."

Haymitch smiles. "You forgetting something?" He taps the spot above his own heart.

Peeta looks down and nods when he notices his blank lapel. He buries his hand into his trouser pocket until his fingers close around the gold trinket. He looks in the mirror as he clips it quickly to his lapel, only stabbing himself once in the finger for as much as his hands shake.

"Don't muss up the suit, boy, what'll that look like on national television?" Haymitch taunts.

"You know you're gonna have to knock off that 'boy' crap here in about an hour," Peeta says, side-eyeing the man. Haymitch guffaws and clasps the younger man on the shoulder.

"Don't trip out there. And don't look so cocky, cripes; you want to make people like you."

"They do like me; I wouldn't be here if they didn't. Or have you forgotten already?"

"Not all of 'em. Not yet," Haymitch says soberly.

Peeta nods. "Any last minute advice?"

Haymitch seems to think carefully before he nods and says simply, "Yeah. Stay alive."

He's ushered out the door a minute later by a tall, dark haired man in a crisp Peacekeepers uniform. He's been introduced to the man before, and if he's recalling correctly, his name is...Gale. Yes, that's it.

"It's time—do you have everything?" Gale says. Peeta nods and motions to follow him out the door. The man holds his hand up to him quickly.

"I'd advise a coat. It's well under freezing out there today."

"I'll be fine," Peeta returns. He'd rather wear a coat too—the lack thereof was Haymitch's idea, to remind everyone of his youth and vitality. Putting it mildly, Peeta thought it was a dumb idea.

Gale raises his wrist to his mouth and trills an order into the elaborate communication device there before escorting Peeta down the hallway. As they walk, Peeta waits for the arm to grab him, stop him from taking another step, tell him this whole situation was a massive mistake: that at 31, he's far too young, too inexperienced, and he'll be taken home immediately so that he wastes no more of the country's time.

It never comes. He stands nervously in front of a set of double doors and tries to keep from bouncing on his toes. Just ahead of him, Leonid Boggs nods at him reassuringly. It calms Peeta slightly as the doors swing open, and a gust of cold air immediately sets his skin pebbling under his jacket. The anthem blares. A crackly bit of feedback resonates through the crowd before Gale nudges Peeta forward with a nod.

He squares his shoulders and raises his chin. He steels himself to replace the jittery grin with a genuine, confident, practiced smile as he steps onto the wide balcony. A cheer erupts from the crowd as the effervescent voice of Claudius Templesmith booms out to them:

_"Ladies and Gentlemen of Panem—your president-elect: Peeta Mellark!"_

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**A/N: The wheels have been cranking on this story for a few weeks now, and I'm finally biting the bullet and putting it in motion! The muse for this particular AU comes not only from the amazing world of THG, but also from the television show _The West Wing_ and the 1995 movie _The American President. _Different aspects of all three of these mediums will factor into the overall storyline for this fic.**

**Many terrific folks are helping contribute political ideas and theories via Tumblr that I'll be weaving in and out of this story - I hope you all know who you are and know how eternally grateful I am for your input. I hope to have a tiny tribute to each one of you interspersed through the text as I go as an extra thank you for being so thoughtful and wonderful.**

**I'd be remiss if I didn't personally thank _Chelzie, misshoneywell,_ _haka_nai, _and _BookJunkie007 _for being supportive of this story and offering their help whenever I need it. In addition to these lovelies, I have the beta/pre-reading squad of awesome and win in _sohypothetically, megsonfire, _and _Court81981, _who are making sure my ideas are fluid and my grammar isn't too atrocious. Thank you ladies for signing on for the adventures of President!Peeta. Finally, a million thanks to the incredible _Ro Nordmann_ for my beautiful cover art/banner. I love you all dearly! **

**This is only the beginning of this world - I hope you'll come along with me as it continues! I'll be getting the first chapter out ASAP. Thank you for reading; feedback is my very favorite thing. Leave it here or on my Tumblr: baronesskika dot tumblr dot com. **


	2. Angel with a Shotgun

_**July**_

"Ms. Everdeen, we've arrived," the driver of the long black car says when he turns around to face his backseat passenger.

"Officer," Katniss responds without a thought.

"Pardon?" the driver replies.

"Officer Everdeen, sorry. Not 'Ms.' if you don't mind," Katniss says. She'd always hated being called "Miss" or "Ms.", even before her promotion to Officer within the ranks of the Panem Peacekeepers; she's grown weary of correcting people all the time.

"Of course. We've arrived at the Mansion. If you follow the path up this flight of steps, you'll be at the Peacekeepers Headquarters on the property and will be signed in," the driver says with a curt nod.

"Right, thank you," Katniss says, reaching into her satchel to retrieve her wallet. The driver waves her off with a white-gloved hand.

"The ride is paid for, Officer, you're all set," the man tells her.

"Oh. Well, thank you again," Katniss says as she reaches for the handle of the door. Her fingers have almost closed around it when the door swings open. She sees the uniformed junior Peacekeeper stand at attention as he holds the door for her, and nods at him politely even though it bugs her that she couldn't open her own damn door. She does as the driver instructed, taking the path up the flight of twenty-odd stairs, and pushing open the thick glass door of the blatantly militarized two-story structure. Several more junior officers stand at attention as she passes, the blue and gold insignia on her jacket indicating she is an Officer First Class, and is thus deserving of this respect. She hands over her ID card and Peacekeeper badge to the clerk behind the desk and shifts the handle of the satchel from one hand to another while she waits for the woman to analyze it.

"Officer Katniss Everdeen," she says simply. "I have a 2 o'clock meeting with Agent Hawthorne."

"Yes ma'am," the woman says as she types a quick note into the computer before handing Katniss back her personal effects. "Allow me to escort you to his office. He left communication saying he'd be just a few moments late but asked if you'd be kind enough to wait for him there."

"That'll be fine," Katniss replies. Despite being short-legged, the woman walks fast and Katniss has to quicken even her own brisk pace to keep up, even going so far as taking two-stairs at a time as they climb the marble staircase to the second floor. A few twists and turns of the conservatively decorated hallways and they come to a stop in front of a dark mahogany door emblazoned with the name _Gale Hawthorne, Chief Agent._

"He'll be along any moment, Officer Everdeen," the woman says as she pushes the heavy door open and gestures inside. "Please, make yourself comfortable."

Katniss steps inside and can't help but immediately marvel at the view. A handsome desk and plush office chair sit in the corner across from a full-to-bursting bookshelf, but the truly impressive bit is the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the entire back wall. Thick brown curtains are pulled all the way open and appear to be more for decoration than function as the view overlooks the back most courtyard of the Presidential Mansion. Katniss takes a deep breath and feels a smile tug at her lips.

_Gale did good, _she thinks fondly of her friend. She drops her bag into the simpler chair across from the desk and folds her arms as she continues to drink in the view. A fountain bubbles and flows in the center of the courtyard, and tall bushes of flowers she couldn't even begin to name construct an intricate maze around the perimeter. She knows that high-level Peacekeepers are no doubt stationed in various corners of this little utopia, but that doesn't take away from the beauty of it. It's not ostentatious or gaudy, like so much of the Capitol. It simply _is._

"View's not too shabby, eh, Catnip?" Gale's voice rings out, breaking Katniss's concentration. She turns and smiles at her old friend. All at once, this office and its proximity to the residence of the President of Panem doesn't exist; they are simply Hawthorne and Everdeen, the inseparable pair of troublemakers that were always one day from getting expelled from the Peacekeepers Academy of District Two. They were never really huggers, but Gale holds out his arms and Katniss steps into them gladly.

"Yeah, it's alright," Katniss says with a smile when she pulls away. "How many of these books have you actually read and how many did they put here just to make you look smart and sophisticated?"

"Ah, clever girl," Gale says, pointing to the tip of his nose as he rounds his desk and drops into the chair. The leather squeaks like it's seldom used, and Katniss supposes it might not be. "Thanks for swinging on by to take this meeting, Katniss. I know the ride in from Five can be a long one."

"Not as long as some. And it's not really like you gave me much of a choice," Katniss says good-naturedly as she sinks into the chair across from him and folds her hands in her lap. "What's up, Gale?"

"I need a favor and you were the first one I thought of, just like I said in the communique," Gale says with a shrug.

"You wanna tell me what that favor is, or are we gonna play a round of Twenty Questions until I guess properly?"

"I'd like you to step down as Officer First Class," Gale replies bluntly, causing Katniss's eyes to go wide.

"Wait, what?" she stammers. The request is obviously untenable—Gale knows exactly how hard Katniss worked to achieve her rank and station. He knows the pride she takes in her work and the personal significance of that hard work turning Five into one of the safest, most peaceful Districts in the nation. "Why the hell would I do something like that?" she presses, anger beginning to permeate her words.

"It's against the law to work for two branches of the Peacekeepers at once, so I need you to step down so you can be reassigned. Here," Gale says, holding out his hands in offering. Katniss blinks rapidly as she surmises that "here" means this building: the headquarters of the Secret Service branch of the Peacekeepers organization.

"You want me to be SS?" Katniss says slowly.

"'Round these parts, Catnip, we tend to refer to ourselves as Tributes," Gale replies.

She's heard the term before, but has a hard time believing that Gale Hawthorne of all people would willingly use it. When a Peacekeeper is sworn in to the Secret Service branch, they're made to take an oath, wherein they _solemnly swear to offer myself up in tribute to protect the lives of the men and women who serve the interests of the citizens of Panem._ It's become a tongue-in-cheek name for those who serve within the Secret Service—"tribute" or "trib", those who may well give up their life so that someone else can live. Katniss always considered the branch to be just a slight step up from shoving her pistol in her mouth and pulling the trigger.

"Gale, I…"

"Before you go thinking this is nepotism, Katniss, let me assure you that it isn't. I called every District precinct and spoke with every supervisor to compile the most thorough list of names I could manage. But when I called Five, Mitchell kept me on the line for twenty minutes talking about you. Most of it I already knew from back in the day—your marksmanship, your testing scores, your complete inability to take a damn vacation when there is any work at all to be done. But you want to know what he reminded me of that I'd nearly forgotten, although I have absolutely no idea how it's possible?" Gale says.

Katniss shrugs her shoulders.

"He said 'Deep down, I know she's still just a girl from Twelve'. Somehow it slipped my damn mind that you were born and raised in Twelve. Pretty dumb, huh?"

"Considering it's _your_ home District," Katniss says, her voice small. "I lived eight years in Twelve and ten in Five before I went to Two for training; I wouldn't call myself a 'girl from Twelve'. _Five_ is my home."

"That may well be. But you're still Seam, just like me. That tells me two important things about you, Katniss—you know how to survive, and you don't go down without a fight. That's what you need to be a Tribute, and that's why I want to give you this job," Gale says.

Katniss stares down at her shoes and searches for the right words to say. As she suspects, they don't come easily. "Gale, there have to be a hundred people who are more…"

"There may be. But they're a hundred people who aren't you, and you're the one I want," Gale says. He's reluctant to appeal to Katniss's sense of patriotism and perseverance, particularly when he knows for a fact that one is far stronger than the other, but it seems the quickest way to end the argument altogether. "Katniss, I'm asking you to serve your country and serve your President. Simple as that. And personally, I think if he were alive, your father would be awfully pleased to hear you referred to as 'Agent' Everdeen."

Katniss's back is ramrod straight as she takes a deep breath and holds her head high. She could kill Gale Hawthorne for being able to manipulate her so easily. "Alright. I'll have to head back to Five to pack my things. I'll put in my notice to Mitchell then."

Gale shakes his head. "You'll have to send it via communique. I'm afraid if you accept, you won't be returning to Five for quite some time. Your position would begin immediately upon your signature."

"What the hell are you going to have me do that I can't go back for my whole two boxes of crap?" Katniss says, annoyance heavy in her voice.

"It's…it's easier if I show you," Gale says with a sigh and gets to his feet. He marches towards the door of the office and looks behind him with a scowl. "Coming?"

Katniss leaves her satchel on the chair behind her and rushes after him. She can match his pace just fine, having done so for two years in the Academy, and doesn't bat an eye when he escorts her out the back door of the building along a path that appears to lead directly into the Presidential Mansion. It doesn't really hit her that that is _exactly _where they are going until Gale is already pressing his palm to a print-scanner, and a heavily armored door swings open in front of him just a second later.

Unlike the sparsely decorated building they've just left, the mansion is plush, warm, and elaborately decorated. Some paintings look as though they've survived hundreds and hundreds of years, and depict men in white wigs and puffy collars riding on horseback and carrying archaic weaponry and swords. Katniss has barely a minute to look at any of them as Gale takes them through a long series of twists and turns, their well-polished shoes looking almost dull on the high-gloss of the mansion floors.

"Do I get to ask where we're going?"

"You have a meeting," Gale answers back over his shoulder. Another twist, another long hallway lined with regal paintings but no windows to speak of at all, and they're at an elevator. The metal doors click open and Gale gestures her on.

"With whom do I have this meeting?" she asks with a huff. Gale has always been one for mystery and cunning; it annoyed her at the Academy and it annoys her now.

"Katniss, this elevator has three stops. The first is where we entered—the bottom floor of the security passage underneath the private residence. It's a bunker for all intents and purposes, designed to be a fortress for the President in the event of an attack on the mansion. The second stop is the residence itself, and the third, where we're going, is the north wing of the mansion where the senior staff to the President work," Gale says simply.

"Why am I meeting the senior staff? Surely they have something better to do—wait. Are you trying to assign me to one of _their_ protection details?" Katniss asks with a shake of her head; press liaison to the President, Finnick Odair, is on television several times a day and is arguably the most popular face of the administration, save for the President himself. If Gale is going to try to assign her to _his_ detail, she's going to have to become far less camera-shy.

"Not exactly. Most of the senior staff doesn't have dedicated security, save for Haymitch Abernathy, and that's only because he got a few death threats early on after the administration took control. The President insisted upon his having a full-time guard, given that the man is ostensibly his second-in-command."

"What about Prime Minister Boggs? _He_ was the one that ran everything after Snow was ousted."

"Sure, he stepped in and did an admirable job. But the Prime Minister and the President are two completely separate checks in the legislative branch. They take over one another's duties temporarily until other arrangements can be made, but that isn't exactly the point. The President is a smart man, there's no doubting that—but Haymitch Abernathy is the real brains behind this administration, and everyone, even the President, knows it," Gale explains.

"So why didn't we elect _him_ six months ago?"

"Shit, Katniss, have you _seen_ Haymitch Abernathy? The man is one of the least palatable people on the planet—you think the _Capitol _would ever elect a man like that? Not to mention it took two months to find him a guard that could handle him before Jo Mason took the post; she's just as surly as he is, which is the only way it works. But no—you're not going to be assigned to the senior staffers, or junior staffers, or even regular mansion security."

The elevator opens and Gale strides forward, oblivious to the many men and women in the exact same white and black suit ensemble who nod or salute him. Interspersed with the officers are long rows of desks and cubicles, all manned by people equally well-dressed but who are arguably far busier. Most of them don't even look up as she and Gale pass, and they're walking too fast for her to focus on any of them for longer than a second.

The seemingly endless passageway finally stops at a rounded wall manned by larger, bulkier guards who seem to have rods completely rammed up their asses for how straight they're standing. Gale doesn't even have to pull his badge out of his pocket before they stand aside to let him pass. Katniss is sure they sneer at her just a little before they fall back into formation. She's used to it in her position of authority, but it still annoys her.

Past the wall are another row of desks, but the general hustle and bustle of the exterior wing is notably absent. A woman dressed to the Capitol nines sits at one of the desks, clicking away at a computer with long, brightly painted fingernails, and barely looks up as she addresses Gale. "He's in senior staff now, Gale, you'll have to wait a moment," the woman chirps.

"They were supposed to be done twenty minutes ago…"

The woman throws her hands up in the air. "I cannot keep him on schedule no matter how hard I try! Every day is a big day now and you know it!" she huffs as she gets up from her desk and stomps away in her precariously high heels. Gale waits until her back is completely turned before facing Katniss with a cheeky grin.

"Effie's the President's executive assistant. I think the only person who likes tormenting her more than the senior staffers and me is the President himself," Gale says snarkily.

Katniss can't help but smile at this—until a sinking feeling invades her gut. "Gale, that room is the…"

"The Aula, yes," he says impassively. But of course, Gale would be impassive about that; he is, after all, the ACP—_Agent in Charge of the President_.

"You're taking me in to meet the President. He's my "meeting"?" she whispers. Her stomach drops to her toes from sheer nerves.

"Well, as soon as he's done with senior staff, yeah," Gale says with a nod. He's got his wrist quirked up towards his face like he's looking at his watch, but it's like no watch Katniss has ever seen before. He catches her staring at it and points the face towards her by way of explanation. "A communicuff. All Tribs are fitted for them and are expected to wear them at all times. They're surprisingly comfortable, actually. You get used to them fast."

The notion of wearing a watch that allows for constant communication with every other agent equipped with the same device sets Katniss's skin to crawling. In Five, when she's off-duty, she's _off-duty. _But Gale works for the President—she wonders if he's been off-duty anytime within the last six months. How that doesn't drive him crazy baffles her—she knows his work is his life, just like hers, but to not even have a minute alone…

A side door opens with a mechanical _whoosh_ and a small group of men file out. Katniss recognizes Finnick Odair's dazzling green eyes and bronze hair immediately; the Seam-look of Haymitch Abernathy is apparent, even as he skulks off to his own office next door, which slams with a thud behind him; the final man, with his short cropped black hair, dark skin, and gold wire-rimmed glasses is not one Katniss can place immediate, so she looks at Gale.

"Beetee Watts, head of Executive Communications. Means he's the head speech writer and steps in when Odair isn't available, although Odair is very seldom unavailable," Gale mutters, still not looking up from his communicuff. A crackle of static emanates from the little thing before a deep voice filters through.

"Gale, Thresh here, over."

"Copy, Thresh, your status?"

"All clear in the South Wing; Thom's awaiting your word for the residence."

"Thom, Gale here, over."

"Copy Gale, residence is secure."

"Hold in the residence for now until Annie and LD arrive, Thom. The President will be expecting them at their usual time."

"Copy that, Gale; Thom out."

"Thresh, proceed into the Aula in five."

"Copy that, Thesh out."

Katniss gapes at the smoothness of Gale's commanding voice until he nods her towards the door that had just clicked closed a moment before.

"We're heading that way," he says.

"We don't need to be, like, announced?" Katniss asks.

"Only if we're interrupting a private meeting. We _are_ the meeting, Katniss, come on," Gale says before he steps in front of her, waves his palm in front of the door and steps through it when it slides open. In a daze, Katniss follows him.

"Mr. President," Gale says curtly.

"Afternoon, Gale, sorry to keep you waiting," a voice says. Gale steps aside a second later and Katniss swallows hard as Peeta Mellark smiles at her from behind a desk even more elaborate than any she's seen before—even today.

"Not at all, sir. I'd like to introduce you to Officer Katniss Everdeen of District Five. She's my personal candidate for the open post we discussed earlier this week," Gale says.

"Of course! Good to meet you, Ms. Everdeen, Gale's told me quite a bit about you," the President says as he steps around his desk towards Katniss, his palm outstretched to her. She takes it tentatively, but can't stop the words coming out of her mouth.

"Officer, sir," she states.

"Pardon?" the President says with a quirk of his head.

"Officer Everdeen, not 'Ms.'," Katniss corrects, and immediately wants to snatch the words out of the air and shove them back in her mouth. She's said two sentences to the leader of the country, and in those six words has actually _corrected _the President. She steals a look at Gale, who's looking at her like she's crazy. She casts her eyes downward immediately as she releases the President's hand and clears her throat. "My apologies, Mr. President. That was incredibly rude of me."

Peeta Mellark's eyes squint when he smiles. Katniss knows this because he smiles at her broadly before holding his hand out to the plush sofas in the middle of the perfectly round, glass-domed room. "Not at all, Officer, I apologize for not using your correct title. Please, take a seat. I can ask Effie to get you something if you'd like."

Katniss folds her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking as she sits next to Gale on the red silk sofa to the left of a wing-backed chair that the President sinks into. She clears her throat again before saying "No, no sir…I'm fine, thank you."

The President accepts this and crosses his right leg over his left, his left hand loosely resting on his ankle above his knee. He looks to Gale at once.

"Thresh will be in momentarily, sir, and Thom as soon as Annie checks into the residence."

"Perfect, that gives us a few minutes. Ms…apologies, _Officer_ Everdeen—may I ask how you decided to enter Peacekeeper training?"

Katniss swallows hard and rubs her hands together before answering. Everything about this place is intimidating, although this man and his crisp, perfectly tailored grey suit across from her should be the most intimidating thing in the room. And yet, Peeta Mellark radiates kindness instead of arrogance, all the while exuding endless confidence.

"I, um…I entered the Academy in Two after I finished my District-required schooling in Five. I didn't have the math and science scores to enter the electrical engineering school at home and wanted something different anyway," she says shakily.

"You could have gone and done a lot of things, though; why Peacekeeping?"

Katniss decides not to lie. "For my sister's sake, sir."

"Your sister?" the President asks. Is that concern she hears in his voice?

"Y-Yes," Katniss stammers as she swallows over the lump in her throat. "My sister died a few months before her 16th birthday. The circumstances of her death were—troubling. I suppose you could say that I entered Peacekeeper training to find out more about the process that failed her."

Katniss knows she's blowing this—whatever _this_ is—by the sudden darkness that invades the President's sapphire blue eyes. His right hand seems to rise to his well-definited jawline on instinct, his first two digits trailing slowly across his lips; Katniss wonders if this is a nervous tick for when the man is deep in thought.

"I am very sorry to hear that," he says gently. "May I…what was her name?"

Katniss cringes, but this man is still the President. "Prim. Short for Primrose."

"That's a lovely name," he says kindly. "I must admit, Officer Everdeen, that I have also experienced—"

A door slides open suddenly and Katniss startles. A man even darker in complexion than Beetee Watts steps through and nods curtly to the President. "Apologies for my interruption, Mr. President."

"Not at all, Thresh. Please take a seat. Can Effie get you anything?" the President asks, gesturing towards the empty couch to his right. The man shakes his head.

"No sir; thank you, though."

"My apologies, Officer Everdeen, where were we?" the President says quickly as he turns his attention back to Katniss. She swallows hard again and smooths the fabric of her dress slacks.

"I was explaining what motivated me to join the Peacekeepers, sir. If you don't mind, though, I...I'm very confused as to why I'm here. Gale mentioned something about me joining the ranks of the Tri—Secret Service, but surely there are thousands of already decorated officers that would be more equipped to handle the guard of the president. Not to sound ungrateful, truly, but...I'm not the person for this post."

Peeta Mellark shakes his head with a soft smile on his face. "On the contrary, Officer," he says. "I already firmly believe you are."

A buzzer rings out behind the desk and the President gets to his feet. Gale crosses over to the door the agent called Thresh had entered through and presses a button on his communicuff.

"Gale to Thom. Annie and Little Duck are secure?"

"Roger that, Gale; arriving in three...two..."

Gale waves his hand in front of the door and a moment later, the President squats down directly in front of it. When it opens, a tiny blur of blonde curls rushes through.

"DADDY!" a voice much louder than that which should belong to a child so small resonates through the room, and a smile wider than any Katniss has seen spreads across the President's face as he sweeps the child up in his arms and spins him in place.

"Heya, Ry-Ry!" Peeta Mellark exclaims as he kisses the boy soundly on the cheek and props him on his hip.

"Daddy, it was art class today so I drew you a new picture for your desk. Annie has it, wanna see?"

"Of course, Duckie, but first I need to introduce you to someone. Can I put you down, you're getting way too big for this..."

The child grumbles but slides down easily to his feet, turning around when the President places his large hands on the child's shoulders. Gale nods quickly to Katniss, who stands up and tries to keep the vaguely shocked look off her face.

"Rye, this is Officer Katniss Everdeen; she is going to spend some time with you and Annie this afternoon. Would you say hello, please?"

"Hello Officer Everdeen!" the child responds brightly to Katniss.

Katniss is mute for a long moment before she nods at the little boy, who's looking at her expectantly. "H-Hello. It's um…it's nice to meet you."

"You too! Daddy, can I show you my drawing now?" the boy says, arching his neck up to his father, who beams down at him affectionately. The President scoots around his desk and sinks into the plush office chair a moment before the little boy crawls up in his lap. The pair seem to be examining the glass panel top on the regal-looking desk, and the boy points a chubby finger after a long second of studying. "That one," the child says.

"I like that one, why would I take that one out?" the President says with a laugh.

"'Cause this one's better, Daddy, I promise! Huh, Annie?"

A raven-haired woman in the same, standard Secret Service uniform that Gale and Thresh wear strides forward and holds out a piece of paper. "Why don't you let your father decide that, Rye? How are you, Mr. President?"

"Fine, Annie, thanks. Did you meet Officer Everdeen?" the President asks, claiming the piece of paper and studying it with a smile before nodding the woman towards Katniss.

The woman shakes Katniss's hand politely and smiles. "Annie Cresta, I'm Rye's guard. Gale told me you'd be shadowing us this afternoon," she says.

Katniss is still speechless, but finds it in her to at least nod politely. "I-I…"

Gale and Thresh approach Annie, tearing her attention away before Katniss can formulate an answer; the three of them and another ashen-skinned man, who she presumes is this "Thom", huddle in a little group quickly, their attention turned away from the President and his child. Katniss realizes at once they aren't actually ignoring the father and son; this must be one of the rare occasions of the day when the pair of tow-heads get the opportunity to whisper to each other conspiratorially, for the little boy to giggle happily at the words his father murmurs to him, for the father to hold his child close to his chest. Katniss tries not to stare, realizing this is probably as close to privacy as the Mellark men most of the time She follows the Tribute's examples, and examines the high arched windows above them. She can't help but wonder just how safe it actually is for the entire ceiling above the most important executive room in the country to be made of nothing more than glass.

The same buzzer that went off a moment before the little boy bounced into the room trills again, and a heavy sigh is heard from the boy behind the desk.

"Do I have to, Daddy?" Rye Mellark says pleadingly to his father, who kisses his forehead and scoots him off his lap.

"I have four more meetings today, but I'll be home in plenty of time to tuck you into bed. Tell Auntie Delly that I said you don't have to go to sleep until I walk in the door, no matter what time it is," his father replies. The look on the boy's face is exuberant, and he hugs his father around the waist with all the strength his tiny arms can muster.

"Deal!" he chirps, and skips to Annie's side. The woman looks down at him tenderly, then up at Katniss.

"Annie, I'm going to have one more word with Officer Everdeen before you and Rye whisk her away. If you'd all step out for a moment?" the President says as he slides the bit of paper Annie had placed in his hand underneath the glass-top before letting it fall back onto the desk with a soft _thump. _

"Of course, Mr. President," the agents all seem to say at once, and the little boy waves at his father.

"Bye Daddy! Do good work!" the boy sing-songs.

"Bye, Duckie, see you tonight," the President replies with a wave. Katniss stands in the middle of the room lamely as she watches the young President ruffle his hair and sigh before rounding his desk, leaning against the front, and crossing his arms.

"If Gale didn't explain matters, Officer Everdeen, please allow me to clarify. My protection detail is adequate as it is—Gale, Thresh, and Thom rotate with six other agents at any given time and work round the clock. In fact, I know for certain that I see the three of them more often than I see Rye, or his Aunt, or even the rest of my cabinet and staff."

"So, I'm…" Katniss begins, but trails off as her head swims with the information it is piecing together. The words _Little Duck_ that had been uttered through the communicuff on Gale's wrist bob at the surface and make it hard to breathe.

"May I call you Katniss? I'm sure you'd prefer Officer Everdeen, but it's scary enough for my son to have so many near-strangers in our lives without using such formal titles," the President asks calmly, as if to reclaim her attention. She nods quickly and places her hands behind her back.

"Of course, Mr. President. I'm just—I'm sorry, I'm not particularly good with words and this request has…"

"Katniss," the President says softly. "The protection detail Gale has recommended you for isn't mine—it's Rye's. I need someone smart and agile and observant to head his detail. Annie will be stepping down for personal reasons as soon as we find her replacement and Gale can't seem to say enough good things about you. Now, I can tell you're awkward around children, and that's fine, really. Rye's a good kid and you'll warm up to him fast. His Aunt is his primary caregiver so I'm not trying to hire you to be his nanny—you're his guard. Simply put, I just need you to make sure there are no monsters underneath my son's bed at night. Because despite my promise just now, I can't guarantee that I'll be there earlier than 11 o'clock, maybe midnight, and he'll probably already be asleep. So…I'm asking you to consider serving, and in order to make up your mind, I'd like you to spend the afternoon with him and Annie to get used to what being Rye's guard might entail. Would that be alright with you?"

Katniss gulps and feels her head nod up and down without hesitation. She _should _be hesitating about this. She should be yelling at Gale for using the words _Little Duck _to get under her skin and manipulate her into caring about this tiny stranger before she's even so much as figured out what color his eyes are. She should be the first to recognize just how crazy this entire ordeal is, and nip it in the bud before it gets even more complicated. And yet, her head is still bobbing up and down.

"Of course, Mr. President," Katniss says calmly.

Peeta Mellark smiles at her and uncrosses his arms. "I appreciate that, Katniss. Now, if you'll excuse me, Effie might just have an aneurism if I don't at least try to get back on schedule for the rest of my day."

"Yes, sir. I'll just…" Katniss turns in place and immediately becomes flustered at the sight of not one, but three identical doors, and she can't tell which one Gale, Annie, and the President's son left through. Behind her, she hears his throat clear, and when she turns again, he's smiling at her broadly once more.

"You'll want the one to the far right. The middle is the lavatory and the far left is the Adyton, which only I am allowed in," he says, his smile playing up the kindness in his words. Katniss feels a blush burn hot against her neck as she nods curtly and heads towards the door he's indicated. It opens with a whoosh, and she chances one more brief look back at him before stepping through it. He's rounded his desk again, and is hunched over to study something on his desktop with a pensive face. It occurs to her in the moment before the door closes between them that she's never seen a man with eyelashes quite so long before.

* * *

**A/N: The title of this chapter comes from The Cab song of the same name, also my recommended listening for this chapter, if that's the sort of thing you might be interested in. ;)**

**To say that I am pleased with the response I have gotten so far for this story is a drastic understatement - it absolutely thrills me that you all are enjoying this story, and every single review and Tumblr note I receive humbles me more and more. I hope this story continues to excite and entice you all. Thank you so, so much for reading.**

**My beta/pre-reading trio of amazing (_sohypothetically, megsonfire, _and _Court81981_) each went through this chapter two or three times to help me smooth the introduction of Katniss and little Rye Mellark. Thank you to these three beautiful women is nowhere near an adequate sentiment!**

**I'll be so interested in hearing any and all feedback on this chapter either here or on Tumblr, where I am also _baronesskika_! In the meantime, I'll be trucking right along on chapter 2 so I can get it to you all as soon as possible. **


	3. Wild Horses

"Annie! I'm going to go play by the fountain, okay?" little Rye Mellark squeals excitedly when he, Annie Cresta, and Katniss step into the elegant courtyard Katniss had admired from Gale's office window.

"Go on, Rye, but stay where you can see me, please," Annie says with a smile. The tiny towhead gallops off towards the bubbling fountain, never quite stepping out of Annie's eyesight. Katniss is actually impressed by how closely Rye follows his guard's request; he does seem like a good child. Prim didn't even listen so well.

"You look confused, Katniss, is everything alright?" Annie asks. Katniss snaps out of the thoughts of blonde pigtails and a shirt that always came un-tucked from the back of her sister's favorite blue skirt.

"I…can I be honest with you, Annie?" she replies. The woman nods. "I have no idea why I'm here."

"Oh, I assumed the President explained everything when we stepped out of the room—"

"He did. But I don't know why _I'm_ here."

Annie sighs gently and folds her arms across her chest. Her green eyes seem to scan the surrounding area quickly (not entirely unlike Katniss does when she's thrust into new situations) before focusing briefly on Rye, then back to Katniss. "The President's son needs a guard, Katniss. I can't—well, I don't exactly want to step down, but my current situation is forcing me to do so temporarily and Rye needs a guard. The President requested Gale's assistance in finding the very best one for the safety and security of his child, and Gale came up with you. Surely they've been over all this."

Katniss sighs; they have, sure, but she's not even Secret Service! Why the hell does Gale think she's "the best" anyway? Sure, she easily beat his testing and competence scores back in the day at the Academy, but that hadn't stopped him from becoming a top-ranked Secret Service Agent to her Officer First-Class. There's a _difference_, damn it.

"Let me try asking this way, Katniss—why'd you join the Ranks?" Annie presses. Katniss wants to pinch the bridge of her nose in frustration. It's the second time she's been asked that today, and unlike with the President, she's under no cursory obligation to answer this question. But something about Annie Cresta seems so unassuming, so relatable that she finds the words tumbling across her lips.

"My sister—she died when she was 15. I wanted to find out why the system failed her," she says flatly.

Annie nods. "My twin brother," she says matter-of-factly, and Katniss instantly knows what she means.

"I'm…I'm sorry to hear that," Katniss stammers.

"And I'm sorry about your sister. Maybe that's why Gale picked you, Katniss. Maybe there's something about what drives the pair of us that's intrinsically the same, or at least similar enough that he knows you'd be a good fit. Maybe he cares a lot more for Rye than he lets on. Maybe he just trusts you, or he wants to impress the President…I don't know what motivates Gale Hawthorne, honestly, but if he chose you, there's a reason. The President won't make you take this post if you truly don't want to," Annie says calmly. "For whatever it's worth to you, Katniss—I feel like being a Trib is my way of being a patriot."

"I'm no patriot, Annie."

"Maybe not yet. But you could be."

Katniss takes a deep breath through her nose and is about to speak when the jubilant voice of the President's son rings out. "Annie! Annie, the ducks are back! And the babies are getting so big!"

Annie smiles and strides over to where the boy is excitedly pointing at three medium-sized ducklings swimming after their mother in the still perimeter water of the fountain. Annie nudges Rye's side gently, and the little boy beams at Katniss. "Ducks are my very favorite!" he explains simply.

Katniss feels the words like a punch to the stomach.

"It's why his SS code-name is Little Duck. He picked it out himself, didn't you, Rye?" Annie says affectionately.

"Yep! My daddy helped, though. I wanted to have a bird name, like his!" Rye chirps happily.

Katniss's tongue feels thick and awkward, but all the same she crouches down next to the little boy and gazes towards where the ducks are swimming. "I like ducks a lot, too," she says, feeling sort of silly until the boy's eyes grow wide with excitement. It's then that she notices the color—or colors, as the case happens to be. His left is blue while his right is a flecked greyish-green. His smile is absolutely cherubic as he lowers his voice conspiratorially and leans towards her.

"I can draw 'em real good. I could draw you a picture of one, if you want…" he tells her.

Katniss can't help but share his smile. "That would be very nice of you."

Three short beeps seem to trill from out of nowhere until Katniss sees Annie raise her communicuff to her face and nod at the little boy in her charge.

"Auntie Delly time?" the boy says, as though he already knows exactly what the beeps mean.

"It is. Go ahead and say goodbye to your ducks," Annie says patiently.

The little boy waves his pudgy hand at the swimming birds and then trots off and falls into step with Annie. Katniss follows automatically, watching the way that the little boy's gait perfectly matches that of his guard, so that they're walking together and not simply next to one another. Every so often, the little boy seems to skip and get a foot or so ahead, and the grin he beams back at Annie is always innocent and playful.

"Are you gonna eat supper with me and Auntie Delly again tonight, Annie?" he asks optimistically.

"Not tonight, Rye. Katniss and I have to have to talk some after we drop you off," she explains.

"She can come too! Auntie Delly won't mind!" he argues.

"Another time, maybe, okay?" Annie says with finality, and the little boy groans. Katniss is thankful for this small reprieve, already back to feeling like she's an interruption in this otherwise monotonous day for this small child and the woman who watches over him—a woman, like her, who has a gun strapped to her hip that the boy probably doesn't even notice is there.

The residence of the mansion is warm and homey, even if it is quadruple the size of any house she's ever seen before. Annie and Rye navigate the hallways easily, the child completely comfortable with the high ceilings, marble floors, and the two heavily armed guards at the door they'd breezed through.

"There's my Ry-Ry!" a woman calls out, and the boy grins in adoration as he runs into her outstretched arms.

"Auntie Delly! I drew Daddy a picture at school today and he liked it and put it on his desk. I drew one for you, too!" he exclaims. The curvy blonde woman who's holding him at arm's length to look him in the eyes kisses his forehead sweetly and nods him towards an open door at the end of the hallway.

"Well don't make me wait forever for it, sheesh! Go get your school bag, and we'll look at it as soon as Annie leaves for the afternoon. Did you say goodbye to her?" the woman says, getting to her feet and nodding at the aforementioned guard before looking inquisitively at Katniss.

"Bye, Annie! I'll see you when we leave for school in the morning!" Rye sing-songs before scrambling off to the other room. He doesn't even give Katniss a second glance before he's gone.

"Madam First Lady, this is Katniss Everdeen; she's my potential replacement," Annie explains, gesturing between the two women. Katniss rubs the palm of her hand on her dress slacks before holding it out to Delly Cartwright, acting First Lady of Panem, who shakes it eagerly.

"It's lovely meeting you! And you can call me Delly—I keep trying to convince Annie to do the same. 'Madam First Lady' seems so stuffy and formal, even when you are the President's sister. You'll have big shoes to fill, no pressure or anything, of course," Delly says with a wink, and Annie laughs softly.

"You are too kind, ma'am. I'll send word to the President that Rye is safely with you and the residence guards," Annie says with a curt nod. Delly smiles back and follows the boy down the hallway.

"Perfect. Thanks, Annie, as always! Pleasure meeting you!" Delly calls over her shoulder.

Annie calls a string of numbers into the communicuff on her wrist before Gale's crackly voice responds.

"Gale, Annie, over. Little Duck is secure with Mother Hen."

"Copy that, Annie. You're relieved for the night; have a good evening. Gale out."

Katniss follows the woman blindly as she navigates the complex corridors, offering a nod to the fellow Tributes who stand guard along the way.

"Do you have any questions for me, Katniss?" Annie asks as they make their way to the elevator and wait for the lift to arrive. Katniss feels her eyes bulge. She has nothing _but_ questions.

"Why are you stepping down? The child seems to have a good rapport with you. I'd imagine the President wouldn't want to let you go," Katniss blurts out, instantly knowing it's probably a rude question.

Annie's eyes darken a little, but she smiles all the same. "The President asked me to. Temporarily, as I mentioned before." She pauses and looks over her shoulder quickly at the two guards standing at attention at the residence door. The lift dings as it opens in front of them, and Annie nods her onwards before turning to her and dropping her voice. "He respectfully asked me not to endanger the life of my child in my duty to protect his. I'm not trying to stake my claim on Rye's guard duty or anything, but I don't anticipate my absence from the Tribs to last more than, oh, nine months or so."

Katniss's eyes can't help but flit downwards towards Annie's belly. If she's understood the situation correctly, and she has no doubt that she has, Annie must be early on in her pregnancy—her crisp, tailored white shirt doesn't seem to pull at all over her stomach the way it might if it were overtly distended.

"O-Oh. I see," Katniss says. "I, um...congratulations."

"There's more to being Rye's guard than what we did today, of course. When the First Lady is in residence, I'm off early, which is lovely. But she does ambassadorial and charity work in the Districts several times a month, so sometimes I stay later to make sure that Rye is safe and sound until the President comes up from the Aula. Trust me, I'm not his nanny, but—everyone feels better if he's looked after closely as much as possible during the day, and I consider it part of my duty to keep an eye on him until I sign him over to his father or guardian."

Annie takes a short breath before moving on. "You aren't obligated to say yes, Katniss. If you say no, you'll be on the first train back to Five with no more pressure than to return to your standard Peacekeeper duties. But if you think you'd be willing to stick with him, come back in the morning and you can shadow me while I take him to school so you actually get a feel for how his days usually are. They can be kind of boring sometimes, honestly, but he's a great little boy. I think you'd really like him if you got to know him."

Katniss finds herself nodding in much the same way that she had in the Aula when the President asked her to consider serving. What she can't find are the words to vocalize to Annie Cresta is that she isn't so much concerned about the job not being challenging enough, or about the move from Five to the Capitol, or anything else like that.

Katniss is too preoccupied with the notion that she will grow to care for little Rye Mellark. And that completely terrifies her.

* * *

It's almost 3 am and Peeta Mellark hasn't closed his eyes yet, which is particularly troubling when Effie Trinket will be calling him in two and a half hours to wake up for the day. But the three-page brief on the situation in Eleven did little to satiate his troubled mind; so instead, he's reading the full memo—all 237 pages of it.

Within his first few hours as President of Panem, Peeta realized he was in for an entirely different set of games than being a Parliamentary delegate for District Twelve. Being a key player in drafting laws and amendments meant he already knew the bulk of the information first hand on any given topic that came up in parliamentary proceedings; but as President, he is out of the loop until the draft comes to his desk for signature or veto. When Effie handed him the first several abstracts of various memos, he'd looked at her, baffled as to why they were so short.

"I'd really prefer to read the entire report, Effie," he'd told her.

"But Mr. President..."

"Really, Effie, I insist. Have the courier bring over the lot and I'll read them after lunch. I'm a quick reader," he'd said with a smile, feeling accomplished and confident. He'd rushed off to a meeting with Prime Minister Boggs a moment later and returned after lunch to find his desk actually sagging in the middle from being piled so high with thick binders and briefing files.

"Effie! Are these all the files for this week?" he'd called out.

"No, sir. Just today. The courier said he'd be back with the rest within the hour. Anything else I can get for you, Mr. President?"

Needless to say, Peeta had stuck with the abstracts from then on, except when something was really, truly bothering him.

Like Eleven. The last thing the country needs is a food shortage, particularly with taxes and costs rises on the price of produce and grain as it is, and the drought situation in Eleven seems to have little end in sight. He has an 8 am meeting with delegate Seeder Marquise, one of his most trusted allies from Parliament, and damned if he's not going to be fully informed during a one-on-one with such an intelligent woman. He has 70 pages left of the damn memo; now if only he could get his eyes to stop watering from the burn of not closing them in almost 24 hours.

He's rubbing the bridge of his nose when a small squeak and rustling comes from the other side of the bed. He glances over to see a pair of hetero-chromic eyes blinking at him tiredly.

"Daddy? Why you still up?" Rye says as he rubs his blue and green eyes with his small, balled fists. Peeta places the heavy binder on his side table and rolls to his side, tucking an arm around his son and placing a soft kiss to the crown of his son's head.

"I've got lots of reading to do for tomorrow and I can't go to sleep until it's done. I can go into the living room if I'm keeping you awake, Duckie," Peeta says. In truth, he should just carry Rye back to his own room, but the boy had had a nightmare so bad the other night that he'd actually wet the bed. At nearly eight years old, having an accident like that had completely mortified his son, and if there is one thing Peeta can't stand, it's having his child not understand just how wonderful and special he is. Besides, his own bad dreams tend to be kept at a minimum when Rye is close by, and the boy won't be so willing to bunk in with his old man in a few years when he's in the cusp of teenagerdom.

"No, it's okay," Rye yawns as he stretches his arms above his head and nestles into his father's side. His eyes drift closed, but he fights them and snaps them back open just a second later.

"Bad dreams?" Peeta whispers, smoothing back the thick curls that are just as unruly as his own were when he was Rye's age.

"Yeah," the boy admits sheepishly.

"Which one?"

Rye shakes his head quickly. "I'm okay, Daddy; you can read again. I'll go back to sleep now."

"You can always tell me your dreams you know, Duckie; always."

"I know. I just don't wanna this time."

The clock blinks 3:03 am, and Peeta sighs. He's probably better off just staying awake the rest of the night as opposed to trying to sleep properly, but his eyes are heavy and he knows he has read the same paragraph about genetically modified tomatoes three times. He reaches over and snaps off the light before he tucks his arm around his son and sighs deeply.

"Daddy, you don't gotta..."

"It's alright, Duckie. I'm tired too."

"Will you...um..."

Peeta smiles. He knows the request and despite his singing voice being shaky at best, he can't deny his son such a simplistic request. Besides, the lullaby is old and reminds Peeta of home, which reminds him of Madge, which makes him smile even though he still misses her every day.

_""Woe be, woe be mockingjay._  
_Woe be, woe be to thee._  
_I'll send an arrow through your heart_  
_For to bring such news to me, me_  
_For to bring such news to me."_

_Up spoke-up spoke that mockingjay,_  
_"Don't waste your time with me._  
_Go home and mind that sweet little boy_  
_Whose mama no more to see, see_  
_Whose mama no more to see.""_

His son is asleep just a second later, and Peeta isn't at all far behind him.

* * *

_**August**_

There are marked differences between Peacekeepers and Tributes, as Katniss learns over a couple of short weeks of crash training. Annie helps her every step of the way, reminding her exactly when she should complete her routine surrounding scans.

"They'll become habit soon enough. For now, remember to do them on the 3s and 8s, and soon you won't even need to look at your watch for it. You'll just do them exactly when you need to."

Katniss had scrunched up her face at this and looked at Annie curiously. "How do you know when they're 'needed'?"

"You're a Tribute now. They're _always_ needed."

After weeks of practice drills, Annie finally put in her official notice of temporary resignation, and three days later, it was just Katniss meeting little Rye at the front door of the residence to escort him to school. The boy's hetero-chromic eyes had been puffy and red the last time she'd seen him as Annie hugged him goodbye and told him to promise to be on his best behavior for Katniss. Now they're bright and smiling, like the eyes of a little boy should be. He waves happily at Katniss before falling into step with her.

"You have everything you need for school, right?" Katniss asks as they ride the elevator down to the basement level, where the armored car waits for them to drive them to the illustrious Capitol Academy.

"Yes, Officer Everdeen," Rye says with a nod, his curls falling into his eyes. He breathes a quick puff of air out of the corner of his mouth to try to coax the little yellow ringlets out of his peripheral vision.

"You know you can…um, call me Katniss," she says.

"My daddy said that you like being called by your official title," Rye says matter-of-factly.

This confuses Katniss. Wasn't the President the one that wanted to call her by her first name so as not to needlessly frighten the boy?

"I do, but…well, we'll be spending a lot of time together. We should probably be, you know…comfortable, I guess," Katniss explains. "Is Katniss easier for you?"

"Kat-niss," the little boy says, rolling the syllables of her name around his tongue.

She gives him a small smile. "It's the name of a water flower. My daddy loved the outdoors."

"Oh. That's pretty, then."

"Thank you.

It feels strange to sit outside the classroom without Annie, as she'd grown accustomed to doing over the last several weeks, but Katniss is no stranger to being by herself. She occupies her time with thoughts of her hunting trips as a teenager in the scraggly woods outside of Five, of the practical jokes she and Gale played on other students at the Academy in Two, of the hair ribbons her sister—

No. She has to cut herself off when she begins thinking of hair ribbons and the foul-tempered cat Prim dragged home when she was 10. She gets out of the seat near the classroom door and paces the hallway quickly, reminding herself to do her 3s and 8s checks just like Annie had advised. A buzzer sounds in the hallway a minute later; the various doors swing open and children pour out of them en masse, all eager to get one of the "good" swings on the playground or prime position in line for the monkey bars. Rye's head of curls bounces towards her obediently so she can walk with him out the side door that leads to the playground.

A couple of his little friends urge him to join the line for the jungle gym, and so Katniss stands a few feet off to the side, turning in place slowly so as to peruse their surroundings. She isn't the only Trib on the lot—a few Parlimentary delegates have children in the same school, most with a guard of their own. She nods curtly to one or two as she does her scans before locking eyes on Rye quickly to see that his turn on the tall ladder has come—just before a different towhead snags her attention for a minute.

Ostensibly, the little girl looks nothing like her sister. Her nose is too pointed, her cheeks are much chubbier, and her eyes are too narrowly set on her face. But the elaborate double braid in the back that completely pulls the long strands of sunflower yellow hair away from her face is almost the exact duplicate of the way Prim loved wearing her hair when she was 8. It grew tedious to help her plait it that way every morning, but the task had fallen to Katniss to help her sister get ready for school in the mornings after her family moved to Five, and if Prim wanted her hair braided, Prim got her hair braided.

Katniss wonders whether or not this little girl's mother does her hair herself, or if she has some sort of nanny that does it instead when a yelp of pain that she recognizes as Rye's snaps her back to reality.

* * *

She paces in the emergency room, completely unable to keep still as every worst-case scenario washes over her.

_Fired. Fired, I'm going to be fired,_ she repeats over and over in her head. _I looked away for a minute, just one minute, and look what happened. Gale never should have trusted me, clearly…_

A crackle of static sounds from the communicuff on her wrist before Gale's voice pulls her back. "Gale to Katniss, over."

"Katniss here," she says shakily into the device.

"We are two minutes out from your location, Katniss—anything new to report?"

"No, Little Duck's status is secure, but still precisely unknown to me at this time. Gale, is the President—"

"Code names, Katniss, remember?"

"Right. But is he—"

"We're pulling in now, Katniss, Gale out."

_Fired. Fired. I'm about to be fired. I looked away for one damn minute, and this happened._

A bevy of agents, including Thresh and Thom, barrel through the revolving doors of the hospital exactly one minute later. Gale is in step with the President, whose pace is quick as he moves towards the nurse's station and clears his throat to get the first person's attention he finds there.

"Mr. President! Sir, I am Doctor Lindsey, I'm the attending physician on staff today…" a thin woman with chestnut hair says as she scurries up to the President and holds out her hand. Peeta Mellark shakes it quickly and nods towards the double doors Katniss stands vigil in front of.

"Is that where he is?" the President asks quickly.

"Yes, sir, he's right through there."

"Then why, pray tell, is his guard not in there with him?"

Dr. Lindsey bristles. "The woman is not his family, we assumed…"

"Don't _ever_ assume anything if my son comes into your hospital again, Doctor. That woman is his guard and I expect her to be by his side unless he's lying open on an operating table. In such a case as that, I expect her to be standing right outside the operating room door, not the waiting room. Do I make myself clear?" the President snaps.

Katniss gulps and looks down at her shoes.

"Oh, of course, Mr. President. We just assumed that the regular hospital staff would be capable of…"

"Again, I ask you not to assume. May I see my child now, please, Doctor?"

The President is whisked through the door, Gale, Thresh, Thom, and Katniss quick on his heels. Katniss finds herself just barely out of stride with Gale, the one whom she most needs to speak to in order to ascertain if the "she" Peeta Mellark refers to is really her or not, or more the royal "she" of whomever Rye's next guard might be. She strains her ears to make out what the doctor says to the President about the child's condition when they suddenly pass through another door and Rye Mellark's voice calls out to them brightly.

"Hi, Daddy! They're gonna give me a cast and I get to pick whichever color I want!" the boy says as his father rounds next to his bed and plants a firm kiss on the crown of his head.

"They are? Does that mean you'll be all better, then?" Peeta Mellark says, his former gruff bravado well and truly gone, replaced by the honey-dipped kindness of an adoring father.

"It didn't hurt that much, Daddy! It just bent back all funny. Katniss was worried, though, and it made me worried that you'd be mad at her because I slipped and she wasn't there to catch me; but that's just silly, right?"

Katniss gapes at the boy, wondering how a child so young can be so attuned to her emotional state. To say she'd been worried when she heard Rye's yelp of pain and seen him huddled on the ground nursing his oddly out-turned wrist was something of an understatement. Had Gale not been the first fellow Trib to answer her call for help over the communicuffs, she might have alerted every Peacekeeper within the Capitol city limits that the President's son was, in fact, dying a slow, painful death before realizing it was only a broken wrist.

It still hadn't done much to relieve her dread over losing her job for not keeping a better eye on the boy.

Peeta Mellark kisses his son's head again and murmurs something in the boy's ear. The child giggles in a way that denotes just how heavily medicated he is and nods as his father stands up from his perch on the side of the hospital bed and gestures to Katniss. Her heart begins to pound anew when the President tells Thom to watch the boy so that he and Katniss can speak outside the door. Gale follows them, as is his duty, but has the decency to look away when the President starts to speak.

"Is all that true, Katniss? Rye tends to get pretty worked up and excitable when things like this happen," Peeta Mellark says.

The words come gushing out of Katniss before she can stop them. "Sir, I'm so sorry, truly I am, but I wasn't more than 10 feet away, as Annie indicated I should be when I'm watching him on the playground. I was doing a cursory scan of the area as Annie also suggested I do often to assess any new threats or changes in the overall atmosphere, and I was just turning back around when I heard him cry out. If I'd completed my scan a second or two sooner, I might have been able to get to him before he fell entirely, but with all due respect, I was advised to give him a small amount of distance while he's at school so that he doesn't feel like I'm perpetually hovering over him and I'm sure being the only one in his immediate class with a protection detail can't be easy on him, and I am trying, sir, I promise you that, but I might just be a little—" She trails off of her incessant rambling when the President begins to laugh.

"Sir, I'm sorry, but I don't find this situation funny at all. If you're going to relieve me of my duties because I failed in my task of keeping the child completely safe and secure, that's fine, I am sure I have it coming, but please don't make a mockery of my position and my guilt over the situation!" Katniss snaps just as she realizes that she should never speak to the President in such a manner. Gale's eyes remind her of that.

"Katniss, are you under the impression that I'm _mad_ at you?" the President says as he sobers, his cheeks still a little flushed from the exertion of his laughter.

"I…well, aren't you?"

"He's _seven_, Katniss. Seven-year-olds fall on the playground and bump their heads and sometimes they break their wrists or ankles. He's fine from what I can tell, and he seems much more worried that I'm upset with you for not 'catching him' in time than he is in actual pain. So no, Katniss, I am not upset at all, because accidents _happen_. You followed Peacekeeper policy to the letter as far as reporting the incident from what Gale has informed me; the only reason I'm annoyed is because this damn hospital didn't extend the same courtesy to you, and that is unacceptable. I promise you that will never happen again, or else the hospital administrators shan't like the consequences they shall face. But you, Katniss…please don't be concerned. He's alright. Accidents happen."

The President ruffles his hair and sighs deeply before turning on the perfectly polished toe of his shoe. "Now if you'll both excuse me—I'm going to help my son pick out the color for his cast before I have to go back to balancing the budget with the Treasury delegation," he says with a quick nod before heading back into the hospital room behind them.

Katniss gapes at the man's back until the door closes. She was so sure she was about to get fired…

It grates her nerves even more when she sees Gale's face break open in laughter the same way the President's had a moment before. Unlike before, with Gale, she can at least hit him in retaliation. He thumps softly against the wall when she shoves him, still doubled over in laughter.

"Damn you, Gale! It's not funny!" she hisses.

* * *

He's gotten used to not sleeping much. For the most part, anyway. In the wee hours of the morning, long after he's tucked his son and his broken wrist into his very own bed in the residence, Peeta wanders the empty halls of the mansion, waving and nodding to the Secret Service guards that stand near the major entrances to any labyrinthine hallway or office space. His feet eventually lead him back to the Aula, although his sister will give him any amount of hell for going back to work after just barely getting done with it a couple of hours earlier.

Haymitch Abernathy's office door is open. He shouldn't be surprised. Peeta taps on the door frame and nods at his mentor appraisingly when he sees the man sitting behind his desk, his feet propped up on the surface and a thick binder in his lap. The man has been dozing, Peeta can tell.

"Why don't you head home, Haymitch?" Peeta tells him.

"Head home? And make Johanna's life easy? Nah, she's hunkered down with that tall guard of yours playing dice or something until I buzz her to say I'm ready to go. Unless I just don't buzz her at all…"

He's teasing, but it sobers Peeta quickly. "She's your guard, Haymitch. She'll stay with you at all times when you aren't in the office or at home. It's non-negotiable."

"Yes, sir," Haymitch replies good-naturedly.

"Long as you're here, though…"

"Yeah, start it up. You can be the red ones," the man says, tossing the binder on his desk and stretching his back as he hoists himself out of his office chair. Peeta saunters over to the far corner of the room and swiftly opens the wooden cabinet that houses the elaborately carved dartboard. He pulls the tiny darts from their place in the door, palming the red-shafted ones for himself and the black for Haymitch before meeting the man at their usual throwing point.

"How's the little tyke doing?" Haymitch asks as he watches the President easily ping the 16, 18, and 19 with his first three darts, establishing his early lead in their standard game of Cricket.

"He's fine. Delly's fawning all over him, of course, and letting him eat ice cream and graham crackers for supper," Peeta says before stepping aside to give Haymitch a chance to throw.

"You signed your own death warrant letting that sister of yours raise your kid, and you know it, Mr. President," Haymitch says. His hands are shaky tonight, and the first two of his darts go into the wall surrounding them before the third finds the bulls-eye. There's never really a rhyme or reason for his mentor's shaky hands, but Peeta doesn't call him out on it any longer.

"_I'm_ raising my kid. Delly just watches him when I can't," Peeta says tersely.

"Of course, sir. You got rushed away to the ER before you could tell me how the meeting with Marquise went," Haymitch says, easily shifting gears as he goes to the board to yank the darts out.

Peeta sighs and ruffles his hair. This is exactly the reason he'd been unable to sleep, despite Rye's insistence that he go to bed early like he did.

"It's bad out there, Haymitch. The environmental scientists out of Three are trying these different weather charting methods to see if they can figure out when this drought will break, but…"

"Looking at reduced crops again this fall," Haymitch surmises.

"I can't make it rain, Haymitch. And that's what Seeder's District wants me to do," Peeta says, frustration heavy in his voice.

"Not without a rain dance," the mentor says cheekily. Peeta looks at him for an explanation. "The natives of pre-Panem—Native Americans, they were called—had this tradition called a 'rain dance' for just such an occasion as drought and hot weather. They were praying to some ancient spirit that would allow the heavens to open up and make their lands grow fertile and bountiful once more. Honestly, Mr. President, I've made all those old texts available to you, you really could read them."

Peeta is about to shoot back a retort about Haymitch knowing full well he hasn't had time to read anything that doesn't have a Parliamentary stamp on it for the last six months when the older man changes gears again.

"So that new guard of the kiddo's…" the man says right as Peeta aims a dart dead on the bulls-eye. Instead, the dart-point veers wildly off course and hits the wooden frame. Haymitch guffaws, and it takes everything in Peeta's power to keep the flush across his neck at bay.

"What about her?" Peeta says passively, lining up his last dart and hitting the 18 again.

"She's from Twelve, you know," Haymitch replies as they trade places so he can shoot again.

Peeta shakes his head. "No, Gale recruited her out of Five. She was the second-in-command of their largest Peacekeeper unit there."

"She might be a resident of Five, but take my word on it, Mr. President; that girl is Seam, same as me and that tall guard of yours," Haymitch says. His darts easily land where they need to in order for a tie, and Peeta squares his shoulders while he re-aims.

"And how do you know this?" he retorts.

The mentor shrugs. "Her file's on the database. You could look it up yourself."

"I do have a country to run, Haymitch, or did you forget all about all that campaigning we did that afforded us these plush little offices and this dandy dart board?"

"I'm just saying, sir. Looks an awful lot like you're keeping your District interests well and truly intact in this administration, and I'd hate for it to look like you're favoring our home over other Districts."

Peeta pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm not, though—not at all…"

"I didn't say you were. Just warning you to make sure you remember what things can look like," Haymitch says calmly.

Peeta has lined up another dart he swears will hit the bulls-eye dead on, claiming his win over his mentor when Haymitch speaks again.

"Girl is sort of pretty though, don't you think?" the old man says. The dart lands squarely in the 3 wedge, and Peeta swears under his breath.

"You win, old man. Good night," he says with a flourish, leaving the man to put the game away on his own as Peeta stalks his way back to the residence to turn in.

But long after he checks in on his sleeping son and crawls into his own bed with the lights out, thoughts of Katniss Everdeen's grey eyes permeate Peeta's thoughts so much that he's unable to sleep. As a matter of fact, he _has_ noticed how pretty she is. He's noticed more than a few attractive women since Madge, but none of them left as much of an impression on him as Katniss did that very first day she walked into the Aula. In fact, if he's entirely honest, it's possible that she has left _too much _of an impression on him. Try as he might to blink away the inappropriate thoughts of weaving his fingers into her chestnut tresses, of getting close enough to her to actually identify the intrinsic and intoxicating scent of her skin, none of that is a luxury he can afford. She is his son's _guard_. And Rye must always be his first priority.

He manages to rid his mind of thoughts of greyish-silver eyes, but instead, he becomes fixated on the idea of greyish-silver rain clouds; as such, it's still impossible to fall asleep.

* * *

**A/N: This evening's chapter title comes courtesy of the Rolling Stones, as well as a few various other artists that have recorded absolutely beautiful versions of _Wild Horses_ in recent years. My personal favorites are versions by The Sundays and Charlotte Martin. ;) Additionally, the song that Peeta sings to Rye is _Daughter's Lament _by the Carolina Chocolate Drops on _The Hunger Games OST, _but with the lyrics slightly altered for this context. All credit goes to them for their beautiful, haunting song.  
**

**My profound thanks and a LOT of love go to my amazing beta/pre-reading squad of _sohypothetically, megsonfire, _and _Co__urt81981 _for holding my hand as I churned this chapter out, and for making me laugh at their cheeky comments and blatant fangirling. The three of you are the queens of my heart.**

**I have been thrilled to death by the continued response I'm getting to this story, both here and on Tumblr - knowing you all are enjoying President!Peeta rocks my socks. Thank you so much for reading, and for all of the feedback!  
**

**I'm gearing up to participate in Prompts in Panem over on Tumblr...and I have a tentative plan for an outtake for this story that I hope you'll enjoy. Check out the PiP Tumblr page for some amazing stories that are sure to knock your socks off!  
**


	4. Babel, part 1

_September_

The standard Wednesday senior staff meeting starts twenty minutes late, much to Effie Trinket's dismay. Finnick Odair and Beetee Watts are just settling onto the couches in the center of the Aula when Peeta and Haymitch walk in, murmuring to one another. When both men move to rise to their feet, Peeta quickly waves them off so they stay seated.

"You both know I hate it when you do that," Peeta says with a sigh as he takes his own seat in the wing-backed chair between the two couches.

"Force of habit, Mr. President," Beetee says as he smoothes a wrinkle out of his trouser leg and opens up the binder in front of him.

"How'd the meeting go with the Parlimentary heads?" Finnick asks, clicking open the ballpoint pen in his left hand before adjusting the thin framed reading glasses on his nose.

"Oh, Alma Coin is a joy as always," Haymitch says as he takes his standard seat to Peeta's left.

"That woman has hated my guts from the day I was elected to Parliament, Haymitch, I don't know why you'd suppose she'd stop after I beat her in the election," Peeta says nonchalantly.

"So what was decided?" Beetee asks tentatively, bracing for the worst but hoping for the best.

"Oh, Coin is very adamant we use that blasted HAARP device as soon as possible, damn the consequences," Haymitch says.

"Where do Boggs, Paylor, and Lyme land?" Finnick asks.

"They all say they side with me. Which, for now, is enough to keep Coin at bay, but it won't be forever. And it's getting worse in Eleven, so if we don't come up with something soon…" Peeta replies.

In reality, even with Brinna Paylor and Reanna Lyme's reassurance that they'll always land on his side, and Boggs's insistence that Coin's enthusiasm for the HAARP project is ill-advised at best and generally frowned upon by the Parliament in general, Peeta still worries about Coin's threat to call a vote to override his veto. The only thing that worries him more is Coin's reaction when he broaches his own plan to address the drought crisis in Eleven, which he and the other men in the room know is risky at best, and could be cataclysmically disastrous at worst.

"And what of your plan, Mr. President?" Beetee follows. "Was it discussed at all?"

"No. The Parliament caucus called an emergency session before we had a chance to bring it up," Peeta says with a sigh.

"What we need to count on is Boggs and Paylor and Lyme hating the President's idea less than they hate HAARP. Beetee, we want you to go ahead and start drafting a speech to the nation about our intentions—what the trip will mean, how we hope it will go, pertinent details about Rio itself," Haymitch says.

"Right away. I can probably have a draft of it for your approval by morning," Beetee says with a nod.

"Finnick, I assume there's no news on the communique we issued since we left for Parliament this morning?" Haymitch continues.

"Regrettably no, but Mags and I each proofed the message twice. But the best we'll know once it gets to Rio is whether or not it's been received," Finnick replies.

"I'm not sure I want the media core knowing how heavily involved you are just yet," Peeta says thoughtfully. "I know you haven't said anything in your briefings, but…"

"Well, it's been interesting keeping Templesmith and Flickerman off my back, but I've been able to handle the pair of them just fine the last few months…can't imagine why I wouldn't be able to keep it going now," Finnick says with a smile.

"All the same, until we've gotten confirmed, peaceful intelligence back from Rio, I don't want a word of it coming out of your department. No sense in getting the press all riled up if their military shoots down our hovercraft—" Haymitch begins.

"We're not talking like that, Haymitch," Peeta says sternly, even though it's the exact thing he's been worried about ever since the craft was dispatched. Him thinking it and his mentor actually saying it aloud feel like two completely different things. "What's next?"

Beetee is opening his mouth to speak when the Rye buzzer goes off behind Peeta's desk. Peeta groans, not because he's not excited about getting a few precious moments with his child, but because he hadn't realized how late in the day it had gotten. No matter how much he feels like he gets done any given day, it seems like every single day is a tiny bit shorter and shorter with each progressive week that flies by. He looks to his staff and all three of them give him a nod. He's never had to interrupt senior staff for Rye's 10 minutes before, but he has to wonder if an interruption like this is bound to happen several more times over the course of his term. Either that, or the scant few minutes he gets with Rye guaranteed every day will have to go by the wayside—and that, no matter his duty to his country, is not an option for him.

"We'll wait," Haymitch says gruffly.

"It'll be good to say hello to him anyway," Finnick says, his voice much kinder. Beetee nods his agreement.

"Thanks," Peeta circles his desk to buzz Effie and let her know to allow Rye and Katniss Everdeen into the Aula as soon as they arrive. The EA chirps back that they're walking up now, and since Gale isn't in the room to open the door, Peeta waves his own hand in front of the motion sensor and is just barely able to catch his son around the waist when he barrels into the room.

"Hi Daddy!" Rye says brightly as he twists in his father's arms to puts his arms around Peeta's neck.

Peeta pecks the top of his head and grins at him. "Hey there, Duckie. Say hi to Haymitch and Beetee and Finnick?" he says as he sets him down and points him towards the three seated men. Obediently, the boy waves before looking at his father, befuddled by their presence. Peeta shrugs at him. "Sorry, our meeting is running extra long today."

"Can I still show you my picture I drew in class today?" Rye asks curiously.

"Of course!" Peeta places his hands gingerly on the boy's shoulders and leads him towards the desk. As he does, his eyes drift upwards to where Katniss is waiting just past the doorway, glancing upwards at him and the boy periodically before training her eyes down at the carpet to give them a modicum of privacy. He smiles at her broadly in an attempt to engage her to do similarly. "Hello, Katniss."

"Good afternoon, Mr. President," she replies in kind, her lips a thin, tight line that just barely curves upwards at the corners. She hasn't scowled much at him since that day in the hospital emergency room, but she doesn't ever really smile much, either. Normally Peeta would find that disconcerting, but on her it's…endearing.

"Katniss, can you give my daddy my drawing, please?" He turns to his father as the woman crosses the room towards them. "I didn't want it to get all squashy in my pack, so she said she'd carry it for me."

Katniss pulls the paper from behind her back as if from nowhere and hands it to Peeta with a slight nod of her head. The very tips of their fingers brush against one another for the briefest of seconds, something Peeta is sure Katniss didn't even notice despite it sending an odd shiver through him. He puts it out of his head for the time being so he can focus on his child. They assume their usual place in Peeta's desk chair with Rye occupying his lap as he points out the different shapes and colors he'd used in this latest drawing. Peeta listens intently, of course, but Katniss's presence just a few feet away has him thoroughly unhinged and he can't figure out why. This routine has been the same every day for the last six weeks.

Peeta studies it enthusiastically. "It looks great, Duckie. Where's it gonna go?"

"Oh…um…it's not for you, Daddy. It's for Katniss." Rye's eyes fall to his feet sheepishly.

Either Peeta is hearing things, or Katniss gasps audibly at this revelation. "Oh. Well that's okay."

"I promised her forever ago I'd draw her pictures of some ducks, and…" Rye stammers quickly, his two-toned eyes darting quickly between his father and his guard.

"And you should always keep your promises, Rye. You remember how we talked about that, right?" Peeta says patiently. Rye nods happily and beams at Katniss as his father scoots him off his lap so he can stand.

Peeta hands the drawing back to the woman. "I believe you have a fan, Katniss."

"Thank you, Mr. President. Rye, you didn't tell me…"

"I always gotta show Daddy my drawings, even if they aren't for him. Do you like it, Katniss?" Rye asks bashfully, thunking his head against his father's side as the buzzer sounds once more.

Peeta watches as Katniss's quicksilver eyes survey the page and the crayon marks on it, and for the first time in the weeks he's known the woman, he sees her genuinely smile wide. It's not a pretty smile, or even a beautiful one—it makes her look positively radiant.

"Will you promise to draw me a new one next week?" Peeta says as he smoothes his son's hair. Rye nods enthusiastically as his father bends at the waist to give him another bear hug before walking him back around the desk. "Alright, I'll see you and Auntie Delly tonight as soon after supper as I can manage, alright?"

Katniss's eyes go wide for a moment and she stares nervously at him. "Mr. President, I almost forgot…when we checked in with Thom at the residence, he indicated the First Lady has been feeling quite ill today. I wasn't sure how you wanted me to proceed…"

Behind him, Haymitch clears his throat as if to remind him they're still technically in senior staff, and Peeta flusters slightly before looking between Katniss and Rye. He sighs.

"I…you can just ask Thom to keep an eye on him until I'm finished for the day, Katniss, that's fine," he says quickly. "Sorry, Duckie, I need to finish my meeting. Take care of your Auntie for me?"

"Sure, Daddy. Mr. Haymitch, I hope you aren't sick with a cold like my Auntie is…your voice sounds all scratchy!" Rye says innocently as he falls in step with Katniss as she leads them back to the door where they entered. When Peeta turns back to his staff, he sees Finnick barely able to suppress the smile on his face in response to the deep scowl worn by Haymitch. He eases himself into his chair and rubs his hands together before looking back at Beetee.

"What's next?" he presses the older man, prompting Beetee to pick up exactly where he'd left off when the buzzer sounded. With talk of HAARP, Rio, and Coin out of the way, their meeting wraps quickly and the three men let themselves out when Effie bustles in with an updated schedule for the rest of the President's afternoon, her entire aura positively buzzing with nervous energy.

Finnick steals a single glance back at the man behind the desk before the door closes between them and he nudges Beetee with his elbow.

"Tell me you saw all that!" Finnick says with a grin.

"The President and the boy, or the President and the boy's guard?" Beetee says, returning the smile jovially.

"I knew it! Cripes, he's in as much trouble as I am," Finnick says with a shake of his head.

Beetee shakes his head as he moves past the younger man on his way to his own office. "Odair, no one will ever succeed in getting in as much trouble as you do."

* * *

Peeta lets himself into the residence at close to 10 that night and immediately sets about yanking his tie off from around his neck. It's a standard Wednesday, meaning that Sae, their personal chef, should have made a pot roast for dinner that'll be in the oven for him. He is just thinking that a plate of the dish and a glass of whiskey are all he wants before he turns in for the night when he walks into the kitchen and spies Rye and Katniss playing pick-up-sticks at the hightop counter.

"Hi Daddy!" Rye says brightly, darting off the stool and rushing his father to throw his arms around his waist. Peeta hugs him back happily, but finds it oddly difficult to look upwards at Katniss, who's jumped to her feet and is standing quite awkwardly beside her own stool.

"Whatcha still doing up, Duck? I thought you had a field trip in the morning?"

"Well…I wasn't sleepy, and Katniss wanted me to show her how to play sticks…" Rye says innocently as he looks at his guard as if to implore her not to sell him out.

Peeta clicks his tongue in mouth and places his hand atop his son's curls. "Go get into your pajamas and I'll come tuck you into bed in a minute." He points the boy towards the door he'd just entered through.

Rye huffs, but waves back at Katniss before he obeys. "Night, Katniss. See you in the morning!"

She waves back, and it floors Peeta to her actually see her smile. "Good night, Rye. Sweet dreams…oh, and thanks again for my picture."

The boy beams at her before padding out of the room. Her face returns to a blank mask, her gaze falling back to the highly polished wood floor when it's just her and Peeta.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. President, I didn't see the time or I would have had him get ready for bed an hour ago…" she begins.

"You didn't have to stay, Katniss. Remember? I told you that first day you met him I didn't expect you to be his nanny," Peeta says kindly. He's unsure why, but his feet feel oddly frozen in place.

"No, sir, I don't feel like I am. But I believe it's my duty to stay with him until I can officially sign him over to either you or the First Lady, and with the First Lady feeling poorly…"

Peeta finds his feet and steps towards the kitchen counter quickly. "You sound just like Annie."

Katniss nods quickly before her eyes flit up and meet his own ever briefly. "I'll just clean this up, sir, and be on my way if there is nothing else. I'll be reporting in about a half an hour early tomorrow on account of the aforementioned field trip in the morning," she says.

"Don't worry about those, I'll get them here in just a second," Peeta tells her before reaching into the oven and pulling the warm plate out deftly to set on the counter. He runs his fingers along his mouth idly before turning to her and attempting to meet her gaze. "Katniss, can I ask you one tiny favor?"

"Um…of course, Mr. President," she replies, her voice nervous.

"I, um…well, I am hoping to be making a move that's somewhat unprecedented for whomever has been in my job and it's…well, it's tricky, to say the least. It's taking a lot of time and patience and neither of those are things my son has an ample amount of being as young as he is. And the last thing I ever want Rye to think is that my job is more important to me than he is because nothing could be further from the truth. If you…if you begin to get that impression from him at all, even just the tiniest bit…may I ask you to let me know?"

Katniss swallows hard but nods her head determinedly all the same.

"Of course, sir. But I don't think you have anything to worry about. Rye is a very happy child. And he adores you. I suppose he might wish he saw more of you. You…you really don't have anything to worry about," Katniss tells him. Her voice is as confident as Peeta has ever heard and it pangs his heart just a little. He really wishes that would stop happening.

"Thank you," he says as a flood of relief washes through him. He lifts the piece of tin foil off the plate Sae has set aside for him and sees immediately that she's piled the plate far too high for his own twisted stomach to be able to handle.

He's debating the merits of asking if Katniss had eaten with Rye when her body tenses and her eyes dart towards the door. He must make her extraordinarily uncomfortable for the look on her face. He clears his throat and nods towards her. "Thank you for staying with him this afternoon, Katniss. Hopefully Delly will be feeling better tomorrow so you can have the afternoon off. Have a good night."

"Thank you, Mr. President," she says before she scuttles through the door without another glance at him. He runs his hands through his hair impatiently and looks again at the plate.

"Well, that would have been a stupid idea," he mutters to himself before pushing the plate back and making his way to Rye's room. After he tucks the boy in and snaps out his small bedroom light, Peeta wolfs down as much of the roast as he can handle before greedily swallowing several gulps of the fine whiskey kept in his cupboard before collapsing onto his own bed in a heap. He piles the superfluous pillows in a long stack off to his left and rolls to his side, tucking his arm around them. He sighs deeply, feeling a little silly but getting a strange sort of comfort from the action anyway. Other than nights Rye's nightmares get too bad, Peeta hasn't shared a bed with anyone in nearly 8 years. How a mattress that was never his marital bed can feel so empty baffles him.

"I miss you, Meg…" he whispers to himself, feeling the familiar pang of sorrow when he thinks of the pet name for Madge that she absolutely hated, but allowed him to use anyway. In the past, similar words murmured to his pillows have inspired tears, or at least a tight heaviness in his chest as he remembers her. Tonight, however, he feels something…different. Less pain and more—hope? Is that what that is?

He's sure that's exactly what it is when those damn silver eyes flash brilliantly behind his eyelids. The thought is enough to make him smile for a brief moment before he groans at himself impatiently and rolls onto his back. He rubs his temples roughly as though he's trying to wipe away the image from his subconscious.

"Don't get any more brilliant ideas, Mellark," he swears to himself once he snaps his own light off. "She's his guard. Nothing more."

* * *

Several busy days later, Finnick Odair squares his shoulders before sauntering out to his microphone stand. The bustle of the media quiets as he takes his place and taps his mic three quick times in succession, getting the stragglers' attention before his pushes his glasses up on his nose.

"Welcome, welcome," he says in usual greeting. "Before I have the honor of introducing the President, I'd like to clarify once again that he'll be taking only a handful of questions at his discretion, and that Prime Minister Boggs will be available during tomorrow morning's first briefing to follow up. We'd like you all to be able to meet your deadlines this evening, so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, the President of Panem: Peeta Mellark."

The crowd jumps to their feet as Peeta files onto the stage and takes Finnick's place behind the podium. He taps the small stack of papers on display in front of him so they're neatly set in a pile, and clears his throat before speaking.

"Thank you, please take your seats. At noon today, Prime Minister Boggs and myself received reliable communique from the nation of Rio de la Plata, our geographic neighbor several hundred miles south of the District Four seaboard. This is the first diplomatic contact that the nation of Panem has exchanged with a foreign state since the Dark Days War, and so with it, our period as an isolationist nation has ended.

"On our request, the head government official, the Honorable Consuela Espinoza, has formally invited myself and my immediate staff on a diplomatic, peaceful visit to her nation in exactly one week's time. Our trip is slated to last 4 days, during which time Prime Minister Boggs will be in control of both the Parliament and the Aula. The purpose of my visit to Rio de la Plata is two-fold: one, Prime Minister Boggs and myself believe that the future of Panem is best served by having peaceful relations with our closest settled neighbor, something that has been lacking for nearly 100 years. And two: we are facing a food shortage like nothing our country has ever experienced. With the unpredictability of weather patterns that negatively impact our agricultural Districts, it is our belief that we may be able to cull knowledge and information from our neighbors in hopes of finding new solutions to our drought-riddled land. President Espinoza has agreed to the limited terms of our visit, and will ascertain what, if any, assistance her country will be able to provide us over the course of the trip. I'll take a few questions." Peeta finishes, tapping the papers together once more as a swarm of hands fly into the air and his name is called by every mouth in the room.

Finnick takes it upon himself to call on reporters for Peeta, and calls Maura Cressida first.

"Mr. President, after 100 years of no contact with a foreign government, how exactly were you able to achieve communication with Rio and its President?"

"Rio de la Plata's national language is a dialect of the Spanish language, and as most will know, a similar dialect is spoken colloquially in District Four. Several of my staffers translated our initial message and it was dispatched 10 days ago. That's all I'll comment on for now."

Finnick barks out Claudius Templesmith's name.

"Was Parliament informed of this action prior to the message being sent, or are we dealing with acting first, getting forgiveness later?" Templesmith says, snark oozing from his lips.

"After a century of isolationism, there is zero precident with which to inform the Parliament of contact with a foreign power. Prime Minister Boggs was alerted expeditiously, followed by delegation leaders Coin, Paylor, and Lyme. As soon as we received communique back, the rest of Parliament was informed; this took place about an hour ago. The Prime Minister has asked that further questions on the matter be diverted straight to him."

Finnick calls on Flavius Joseph.

"Who will be making the trip with you, Mr. President? Will your son be in attendance?"

Peeta seethes internally, but still manages to put his best face forward. "I believe I've made it very, very clear in past conferences that matters pertaining to my son are best left off the front page, Mr. Joseph. A list of staffers that will be making the trip with me will be made available through Mr. Odair closer to our time of departure.

"Last question: Flickerman?" Finnick calls out.

Cesear Flickerman's coif of blue hair pops up over the crowd and a bemused smile crosses his face. "Mr. President, my source within the Parliament back offices indicate that top leaders are pushing for the use of the HAARP device in which to address the drought in Eleven. What makes your plan better than HAARP?"

Peeta licks his teeth, and action that is mostly hidden by a raised hand before placing both on the corners of the podium and leaning forward. "I've not formally spoken on HAARP, but I what I can say is this—utilizing engineering technology designed to remap the weather patterns of a certain area prior to extensive and exhaustive research into possible after-effects is not a notion I wish to entertain at this time. It may well be that HAARP is a miracle device, but until the top scientists in our nation can all agree there will be no ill consequences of its use, I am reluctant to pursue it. The Parliament leaders with which you spoke, Mr. Flickerman, would be better off taking their concerns to those scientists if they're so adamant that HAARP be used sooner rather than later. Thank you, that's all."

He nods quickly to the crowd, blatantly ignoring the incessant cries of his name as he leaves the stage and falls into step with Haymitch back to the Aula.

"Why didn't you read the statement Beetee prepared for you about HAARP?" Haymitch sneers. "It would have leant a lot of credence to why we're not pursuing it, that's why he wrote the damn thing."

"They can do all the research they want to on HAARP and Alma Coin can vilify me for not using it all she damn well wants, Haymitch. My answer is always going to be a resounding no. We aren't fucking with the weather, it's asking for disaster," Peeta says sternly before tossing his blazer on the back of his desk chair and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "What's next?"

* * *

**A/N: The chapter title comes courtesy of Mumford and Sons...but I'll bet you already knew that, didn't you? ;)****  
**

**Thank you all for your patience as I took a little break away from this story to participate in Prompts in Panem. The outtake for this story went up on Day Three: Gluttony and I was floored by how much positive feedback it received. I plan on posting it here soon, but I want to make sure it goes up where it should go in the timeline of events, so for now, it's only available on Tumblr. **

**You may have noticed this chapter is marked Part 1...in the original scheme of things, this chapter was set to be much, much longer, but my beta-team and I really liked ending the chapter where I did, so I decided to leave it. I also wanted to get more of this story up for you folks who have been so excited for it; I plan to turn around Part 2 as quickly as I can!**

**My trio of beta-goddesses (_sohypothetically, megsonfire, _and _Court81981_) all had an absolutely crazy week personally and professionally, but still found time to pre-read and do edits for me - they are the best and I cannot thank them enough!**

**Thank you for reading...I'd love to hear what you think here or on Tumblr when you get the chance! Much love to you all until next time.**


	5. Babel, part 2

Katniss isn't meant to overhear the argument between the President and the First Lady that morning. She earnestly tries to avoid overhearing, but Rye had spilled his orange juice on his school uniform and Delly had sent him off to change into a new shirt and put his trousers under the full body dryer in the bathroom, delaying their departure for school. Katniss sits in one of the straight back chairs in the residence foyer, holding the little boy's backpack in her lap and resisting the urge to look at the time on her communicuff every thirty seconds when Delly Cartwright's screechy trill rings out from the kitchen.

"Are you insane?! Have you actually lost your bloody mind?"

"Dell, calm down…"

"No! It's insane enough that Haymitch and Finnick are following you down there without more than a verbal guarantee that they won't shoot you all the second you step off the Hovercraft…but taking Rye with you?"

"I didn't just decide to do this, Sis. I have my reasons. You need to trust me on that."

A hybrid cough/gasp leaves Katniss's throat; she'd been as surprised as any other citizen of Panem at the President's announcement the other day. It'd immediately occurred to her that this must be the 'unprecedented move' he'd alluded to that night he'd caught her playing pick-up-sticks with Rye well past the little boy's bedtime. But as she listens to Delly Cartwright screeching at her brother, Katniss finds herself getting oddly defensive of the President's position on the matter. If there is one thing she understands implicitly, it's the desire to get a job done properly; even if she can't see to what end having Rye with him on this international trip would help the President meet his endgame with the nation of Rio de la Plata, Katniss feels like she can trust the man's reasons behind it. And _she_ barely knows him.

"I swear, Peeta Mellark, if anything you do hurts that little boy…"

"He's _my_ little boy, Delly! Remember? I was the one who took care of him after Madge up and…"

"Don't _ever_ insinuate that I don't have just as much to lose if something happens to him! I've helped you raise him for five years! I'm the only mother he's ever known!"

"And I appreciate it! But he's my kid! At the end of the day, Delly, he's my kid, and you need to trust that I'm doing what's best for him."

"Best for _him_, Peeta? Or best for the _country_? You don't always define the difference well."

Katniss startles when something thunk heavily against something else—a glass against the tabletop, maybe, or a chair clattering against the wall as it's pushed back?—but recovers when she hears the President say something about needing to get to work before storming out into the foyer where she sits. The man whips his suit jacket around his shoulders, completely unaware of Katniss's presence, when something small and glinty flies out of one of his pockets and skitters along the glossy floor to land at her feet. Impulsively, she bends to pick it up before jumping to her feet and opening her mouth to call out to the man. She's barely formed the word "Mister" when Peeta turns and jumps back in shock of seeing her.

"Katniss? I thought…"

"I apologize, Mr. President, I've been trying to be patient with Rye…I was about to go to the bathroom and fetch him so we won't be late, but…"

"No, it's fine, that isn't your job…I'll go get him real quick." The President shakes his head as though he needs to find his bearings before he turns on his toe to head down the hall towards the bathroom. With the tiny trinket seemingly burning her hand where she clutches it, Katniss has no choice but to call after the man, her voice a garbled choke of the formal title.

"Mr. President? I'm sorry, but you appear to have dropped something."

The man turns and quirks his head at her. She does her best to train her gaze anywhere but the dazzling blue eyes that unnerve her so; she steps forward and holds her open palm out to him as she adds, "It, um…I believe it might have fallen out of your jacket pocket."

Relief floods Peeta Mellark's face. Katniss drops the token into his outstretched palm and watches him reverently run his thumb over the golden circle.

"Thank you for catching it. This…it belonged to my wife. She gave it to me ages ago and…well, I'd be crushed if I lost it." He unclips the back a moment later and pins it to his lapel in a fluid, practiced motion. Katniss tries not to stare, but she's pretty sure she can make out the impression of a bird of some sort within the ring of gold.

"It's no trouble at all, sir. If I may…it's, um, very lovely."

The President smiles at her. "It's a mockingjay. Madge had an affinity for music so the birds appealed to her. This had been in her family for ages and she swore it brought good luck. It probably sounds silly, but I tend to think it does as well, hence why I wear it everyday."

Katniss nods curtly at him, all the while trying to ignore the strange flood of bizarre emotion that seems to fill the pit of her stomach. Despite him being ostensibly the most famous person in Panem, Katniss knows very little about President Peeta Mellark, something she hasn't taken many steps to rectify despite his child being her mark. She wonders what might have happened to Rye's mother that his aunt is his primary caregiver, but it doesn't seem prudent to ask and betray her ignorance about the man running her country.

She's so lost in thought that she almost misses it when he says, "It's where my Secret Service name comes from: Gale spotted the pin, recognized it, and suggested they use it."

"Mockingjay," she says as she's snapped back to reality.

"Yeah. Um, hold on, I'll go get Rye so you aren't any later than you already are…"

"Won't you be? Late, I mean," she asks.

The President shrugs, and the gesture looks sweet and boyish on him. "He's worth it if I am."

* * *

"Gale to Katniss, come in?"

Katniss raises her communicuff to her lips as she walks out of the residence that evening, having dropped Rye off with a still-in-a-tizzy Delly Cartwright. "Katniss here."

"Are you excused for the evening?" Gale's voice crackles over the tiny speaker.

"Yes, I'm heading in to sign out now," she responds.

"Stop by my office first, please. Gale out."

She obeys, and a minute later she's tapping lightly on the door to Gale's office. He gestures to her from behind his desk, balancing a phone between his shoulder and his ear and barking an order into it before hanging it up. He rubs his fingers over his eyelids quickly as Katniss takes the seat across from him and looks at him expectantly.

"Sorry, there's a new outer-office guard starting in the morning and there were some issues with his transfer paperwork from Nine. Something to drink?" Gale says in that tone of voice that Katniss knows is usually reserved just for her.

"No, I'm good. What's up, Gale?"

"Well, I need to get you prepared for the Rio trip. You know it's coming up Monday, right?"

Katniss freezes. Despite overhearing the disagreement between Delly and the President this morning, her brain hadn't exactly made the connection between Rye's presence on the excursion and her own.

"Um…yes…but I figured…"

Gale shakes his head. "The President is insistent that Little Duck accompany him. Where that kid goes, you go."

Katniss can't help but flinch. She's grown used to the SS call-name used for her mark, but hearing Gale say the name so passively and easily when he, of all people, knows what it means to her is still hard to swallow. "Can we please just call him Rye when we aren't on communicuff?"

"Sure, sure. There's going to be a security briefing for all the agents on the trip tomorrow at 20:00, but there's a matter you need to be privy to specifically, and it's somewhat delicate." Gale turns in his chair a few degrees and rifles through the top most drawer until he palms a small box no bigger than a baby's fist. He slides it across the desk and nods at her to take it.

"What's this?" she asks.

"They're…well, we're calling them Nightlock."

Katniss nearly drops the box on instinct. Years spent with her sister gathering wild berries in the woods beyond Five's boundaries taught her a lot about what was and wasn't safe to eat. Her brain drifts back to the day she identified the nightlock berries Prim had picked. As soon as she'd found the entry for them in her family's book of plants and herbal remedies, she'd made Prim walk back to the fence and throw them over, then scrub her hands until they were raw for good measure.

Looking down at the two innocuous purple pills in the tiny box immediately makes her throat close off.

"Are…are they…"

"It's a sedative, primarily. It takes effect almost immediately, so whoever has taken it falls into a deep sleep. Then, over a course of about three or four minutes, it slows and finally stops the heart. It's very humane…can't feel a thing."

"Why are you giving me these?"

The look Gale gives her is significant. "Thresh, Thom, and I are all carrying some of our own, in the highly unlikely event the President is compromised. The ones you'll be carrying are sized so that Rye should have no problem swallowing them quickly if he…"

"What?!" Katniss screeches.

"It's a precaution, Katniss, that's all. _All_ communique and intelligence out of Rio has indicated that our trip should be uneventful and diplomatic, but we always hope for the best and prepare for the absolute worst. It's Secret Service policy. We can't afford for the President to be taken hostage, and the only way he agreed to this protocol for him is if we followed the same for his son, as abhorrent a thought as it is. He's counting on you to follow through should the occasion call for it; it's part of your duty, Katniss. You can think of it as your final duty in guarding your mark should the need arise." Gale's voice is stern and unrelenting; Katniss knows there is no arguing this point.

"What if I get separated from him?" she asks, snapping the little box shut and closing her fingers around it. "Or say I don't…how will I know that the situation calls for it and isn't just a misunderstanding?"

"You'll know, Katniss. If the time comes, you'll know. And if you get separated from him…you're an excellent marksman. I trust you to be able to do what's best to make sure that no pain or suffering befalls that little boy," Gale replies calmly.

Katniss feels her blood run cold at the thought of lining up a shot of Rye Mellark's spinal cord and pulling the trigger. Even if it saved him from excruciating torture or abuse at the hands of captors, could she really end that beautiful little boy's life in the blink of an eye?

"Would you be able to do it? Truly? If the time came?" she whispers to Gale before placing the box of Nightlock pills in her breast pocket.

"It's my duty to do so if the time comes. And it's yours. You can't fail him, Katniss. I know you know that."

She nods before finding her feet again and turning to leave the room.

"It's _just_ a precaution. In less than a week we'll all be back on Panem soil with little more than interesting stories about the strange place we all just came back from visiting," Gale tells her, his tone changing once more to one of surprising optimism. She nods back at him and files down to the Tribute locker room two floors below.

Sleep is hard to come by for the next several nights. When she does fall asleep, her dreams are flashes of a bullet marring Rye's perfect curls and the light leaving his green and blue eyes. But what disturbs her more are the images of a battered, tortured Peeta Mellark that her subconscious forces her to watch over and over. She wakes with a start from the dream when she hears a pained cry of agony, followed by a spray of his blood that splashes across cold white tiles again and again, as if she's watching it projected on a film reel. Even more than the fear of having to end Rye's life for his own good, the notion of the President dying fills Katniss with so much dread she finally gives up on sleeping altogether.

* * *

She's never been on a Hovercraft before, let alone one emblazoned with the Seal of Panem, as befits the escort of the President and his staff. She she grips the handle of her bag tightly, thankful no one is immediately close enough to see her white-knuckled death grip. The Mellark men are several paces ahead of her, Rye's tiny hand in his father's large one, and the little boy's curls bounce as he trots happily alongside his father. The child turns in place, never quite losing step with the President and waves.

"Come on, Katniss! We gotta make sure we get the good seats!" he calls to her.

Katniss watches as a huge smile spreads across the President's face. "When have you ever not gotten a good seat on this thing, Duckie?"

"I dunno…but there's a first time for everything, and I don't want it to be today. Duh, Daddy."

The President chuckles heartily, the sound so different and so much more pleasant than his cry of pain that haunts her sleep. "Well don't you worry, Duck. You and Katniss will have the super comfy seats right outside my office. How does that sound?"

Rye stops stops mid-step as he and his father ascend the small stairway that leads into the belly of the craft. "You're gonna be working the whole time, aren't you?" The boy's voice is hollow and dejected, and Katniss watches as the President's shoulders slump.

"Rye, we talked about this, remember?" the President says softly, kneeling so he's at eye level with his son. The little boy huffs and turns in a half circle so he's looking squarely at Katniss. He holds his hand out to her expectantly.

"I want to walk with Katniss instead," the boy says. In response, she feels her ears burn and tries not to notice the pained expression that crosses the President's face.

"I won't have to work the whole ride down, Rye, I promise," Peeta tells him gently.

"I want Katniss to walk with me, Daddy, okay?" Rye huffs.

"I, erm…I can get him settled, Mr. President," Katniss offers tentatively, wishing that she could have some sort of guarantee that her words to him aren't going to wound his pride any further. The President watches as she takes his child's hand in her own before nodding to her curtly and jaunting up the steps of the Hovercraft.

"He always has to work," Rye mutters under his breath. Despite his suddenly cloudy disposition, he still leads Katniss up the short staircase and onto the craft as though he knows exactly where to go. Katniss feels sort of fortunate for this, considering that she hasn't the foggiest idea.

"You know, when I was little, my daddy worked a lot, too," she offers as he tugs on her hand, her eyes darting about the elaborate interior of the craft. "My sister was sick a lot when she was really young and my mother had to take care of her all day, so my daddy worked a lot of extra hours. I missed him, too."

"Yeah?" Rye's voice is dubious, but his eyes flash in a way that convinces Katniss to continue.

"It just meant that when I did get to see him, it was that much more special."

The boy seems to consider this notion as he crawls into a large, plush seat next to a wide window and folds his hands gently in his lap. He sighs and looks wistfully at the closed door directly to their left and kicks his feet against the front of the seat as Katniss settles into hers. The straps and buckle contraption that make up the safety belt befuddle her for a minute, but when she finds the method to snap them together, she notices a pair of green and blue eyes pensively staring at her.

"You think I hurt my Daddy's feelings, Katniss?" the boy asks meekly.

She shrugs. "I can't tell you so. But maybe…"

She's cut short when the great behemoth machine whirrs and groans around them. Her hands fly to the armrests and her knuckles instantly turn white. She's releasing the panicked breath she's sucked in when she hears Rye giggle next to her.

"Those are just the engines turning on, Katniss. It's a good sound!" he laughs. She tries to return his smile with a less panicked one of her own.

"I'm gonna go talk to my Daddy before we take off. Wanna come?" Rye says, deftly unfastening his own safety restraints and hopping to the floor. All Katniss really wants to do is stay tucked in her seat of moderate safety, but where Rye goes, she goes. Her fingers fumble with the buckle for a long minute before she pads after the little boy who's tapping gently on the door to the President's office. It's yanked open a second later by Finnick Odair, who looks appraisingly down at the little boy.

"Hi, Mr. Finnick. When's my daddy gonna be done for a minute?"

Finnick reaches down and ruffles Rye's curls. "We're just finished now, Duck. Come on in." The man stands aside to allow the boy pass, but seems to survey Katniss ever briefly before allowing her past as well. His green eyes aren't masked by the reading glasses he uses in his press briefings, which makes them all the more arresting, even if they don't render her quite as speechless and stupid as those of the President.

_Why the hell is she even thinking like this?_

She stands in the center of the small room with her hands behind her back, watching as Rye rounds his father's desk and crawls into the man's lap. Peeta Mellark kisses his son's temple softly before they begin whispering to one another, and Katniss averts her gaze as trained. She feels like she's being stared at, and when she lifts her eyes in that direction, she sees Haymitch Abernathy looking at her queerly. She drops her gaze to her feet again and wills the color threatening to invade her cheeks not to spread too high or burn too hot.

A crackly announcement over the Hovercraft's PA asks for all passengers to assume their seats and restraints; Katniss turns towards the door to return to the seats she and Rye had just vacated when the President's voice calls out to her.

"Katniss? If you wouldn't mind keeping Rye company for a few minutes while Haymitch and Finnick and I go over one final thing, you're both welcome to stay in here for take-off."

Her neck straightens and her eyes meet his automatically. She feels her breath get shallow in that baffling way she can't explain when his eyes lock on hers and has to will her head to bob in response.

"Of course, Mr. President," she says, her voice breaking at the end. She's hoping he's been busy enough with sweeping his son off his lap and fiddling with the buckle on his own seat behind the ornate desk that he didn't notice. Rye pads over to her and grasps her hand to pull them towards a small sofa in the far corner. He tugs her hand down to sit next to him before pawing around in the cushion he's perched on for the other half of his buckle.

"This is a funny one," the boy says matter-of-factly, burrowing his hand in the back corner of the seat.

"Here, trade me and we'll get you buckled in first," Katniss says to him, standing so he can scoot into her place. She's taken his spot and is handing him the strap with the flat tip of the buckle when the craft suddenly lurches forward, causing her to topple to her knees and bump her hip into a stationary table to her right. She scrambles back into the seat, visually surveying that Rye is restrained before fumbling around wildly for the missing half of her own safety restraint. She's so involved with trying to tug the thing free when she finds it that she almost misses the President's fingers closing gently around her wrist when he's suddenly kneeling in front of her.

"If you tug on that one too hard, it locks up. Here," the man says softly, deftly unlocking the mechanism holding the strap in place before wrapping it around Katniss's hipbone. In the back of her head, she knows she's supposed to stand at attention when the President is addressing her, but she feels frozen in place by the way his hands click the buckle in place under her navel and the kind way he glances up at her.

"Mr. President, you need to take your seat," Haymitch Abernathy's gruff voice says, snapping Katniss out of her momentary reverie.

The man doesn't say anything in response, instead opting to lean over and peck his son's forehead before returning to the chair behind the desk and and strapping himself back in. His eyes dart briefly over to Katniss before turning to his Chief of Staff and shooting a question at him that goes straight over Katniss's head. Once again, she feels like she's being stared at, but this time, it's the green eyes of Finnick Odair that are taking her in with a highly amused smirk.

She's never been so relieved in her life that Rye's nudging her shoulder. It's a wonder that she can keep the entire expanse of her skin from catching fire.

* * *

To hear the surprisingly medically savvy mouth of Haymitch Abernathy tell it, Katniss must suffer from some sort of inner ear disorder for how violently ill she becomes as the Hovercraft reaches its cruising altitude. The three men and boy in the room don't seem particularly fazed by the overwhelming nausea and lightheadedness she's certain must be a by-product of the recirculated oxygen being pumped into through the air vents. She's barely able to rip off her safety restraints and make it into the adjoining lavatory before expelling everything she'd managed to eat that morning. When she stumbles back out, pale and shaky, several minutes later, she nearly bumps headlong into the President himself. She claps her hand over her mouth to keep him from being able to smell the sick coming off her breath, but if he can still smell it, he's not bothered by it. His grip on her elbow is soft as he leads her into the space she and Rye had originally sat and even helps her to one of the plush seats.

He clicks a button that raises the footstool and reclines the seat-back several inches. He smiles at her warmly as he straightens and looks down at her. "It'll be a long flight, Katniss. You should rest while you get used to the altitude. Rye can stay in the office with me, so don't worry about him for a bit. Get some sleep if you can," the President tells her softly.

She wants to open her mouth to object, but a Hovercraft attendant takes the man's place a moment later and practically shoves a pill down her throat, chased by a warm cup of ginger tea. The sedative takes effect immediately and the ginger calms her stomach enough so she's able to rest surprisingly soundly until the familiar nightmare of the President's blood spattering the tiles of a white marble room snaps her back to awareness. The cabin is dim around her and her communicuff is beeping softly, the way it does when she's missed a message from another agent. She smacks her lips together, trying to rid the terrible taste of sick from her tongue as she presses the call button on the device.

"Katniss to Gale? Gale, where are you?"

"Right here, Catnip," Gale's voice answers clearly as he leans in a nearby door frame. "How you feeling?"

"Like hell, thanks," she replies, getting slowly to her feet and searching for a bathroom where she can rinse out her mouth before having to sit back down when a wave of nausea overtakes her. "How long have we been in the air?"

"About four hours. We have at least that much left, so the President dispatched Abernathy and Odair to radio back with Boggs and Beetee in the Aula about any news and let him have some time with Lit—Rye. I need to ask you to drop in on them in about an hour so the President can make a recorded message back to the Capitol with enough time to transmit it before we land. And you'll need to keep an eye on the boy for the next several hours anyway while Odair continues to coach the President on his Spanish." Gale seems to be able to conjure another cup of the ginger tea for Katniss out of nowhere, and nods his head towards the closed office door.

"Um, sure. Yeah, I can do that," she says, sipping the tea carefully and willing her hands not to shake too hard.

"You alright there, Catnip? Other than the air-sickness?"

"Yeah. Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Gale's smile is bemused as he shrugs his shoulders. "You just always seem so edgy around the President, which is odd when you factor in how well Rye's taken to you. What, are you afraid he knows you didn't vote for him or something?"

She stiffens. "How did you know who I voted for?"

"I know you, Katniss. Peeta Mellark is too much of an optimist for you. Besides, Five had a candidate…I just figured you'd go with the devil you knew as opposed to the one you didn't."

It annoys Katniss just how well Gale Hawthorne knows her. But she can't deny that he's right.

"Give 'em another little bit to be together, then go fetch the boy. Since Effie isn't around, there isn't nearly as strict a schedule for the next couple of days. Might as well let them enjoy that, just in case…"

"Let's not talk about the 'just in case', Gale," Katniss snaps, still refusing to believe she'll have any use for the small box of purple pills in her pocket.

"All the same. Let them be for a while longer and then grab the boy. We'll have one last security brief about an hour prior to landing and cabin sterilization. Whatever you and Rye do until then is entirely your call," Gale reminds her before turning on his heel and sauntering away.

The ginger has its desired calming effect on her stomach, and after several more minutes she's able to locate the lavatory and clean herself up some. She hastily re-braids her hair to smooth out a few matted sections from her nap before hanging her uniform jacket on the hook behind the lavatory door. She occupies herself for what she supposes is an admirable amount of time before tapping gently on the door to the President's office. She can't help the way her skin prickles with a tiny bit of fear when no one answers and she has to push the door open herself.

The sight she finds, however, is in no way the horrific scene her overactive imagination flashed behind her eyes. Instead of perched behind the President's desk with their blonde heads pressed together, the President and his son are sprawled out on the overstuffed sofa in a far corner. Rye's right foot dangles off the cushions beneath him, suspiciously shoeless, and his father's strong arm is tucked around his waist. Katniss moves to turn around and let them continue napping for a while longer when the President's eyes flutter open and he smiles softly at the woman in the doorway.

"Feeling better?" the President whispers to her, sitting up as slowly as possible so as not to disturb his sleeping child.

"Yes, sir, thank you. Gale asked me to check in on you so that you could…"

"Yeah, the thing to send back home," the President says with a yawn and gentle stretch of his back. "Give me just a second to wake him up?"

"I can…erm, sit with him if you'd like, sir. It's my job for while you work on this trip anyway; I don't suppose it much matters where or whether or not he's awake," Katniss offers. It's the most comfortable she's felt around the man, and she's not sure where the feeling is coming from. At the same time, she doesn't want to question it.

He smiles at her broadly before tucking his son's foot back up on the cushions and gently covering the boy's small body with a blanket. "You're an angel, Katniss. You know that, right?"

The compliment hits her in a space of her gut she wasn't aware she even possessed. "I…I'm just doing my duty, sir," she replies.

"I suppose that may be," the President says as he gets to his feet and adjusts the necktie under the collar of his shirt. "But I still don't believe I'm wrong."

When he brushes past her a few minutes later, she feels for the first time an actual loss of his presence; even more disturbing is how much of an effect it seems to have on her.

* * *

"Katniss, will you hand me the red crayon?" Rye asks without peering up from the sheet of paper in front of him. She fishes around in the little box for the right color and hands it to him without a second thought. He accepts it with a tiny smile before pressing it to paper and flicking his wrist just so that the vivid color seems to blossom effortlessly from his hand. Katniss has to look away, lest it inspire another flashback to the nightmare she still can't shake.

The rational part of her brain knows that there's nothing amiss. She and Rye were left behind in the President's office as he, Gale, Thresh, and Thom deplaned and approached the looming structure of Rio's Presidential palace. She hadn't quite been able to look away when the President had knelt before the boy and explained to him again why he couldn't leave the Hovercraft quite yet. The man had been shaking like a leaf as he'd held the child in his arms, and it would take a great fool to realize that despite his mostly well put-together appearance and bravado, the unpredictability of the scenario he was about to walk into had him scared to death.

And yet, his son had calmly placed a kiss on the tip of his father's nose and beamed at him proudly. "Go do good work, Daddy. Katniss and I will draw you a picture for when you come back later, okay?"

The President had to stand and leave the room quickly, with no more than a quick nod of his head at Katniss and a "Please take care of him," as he shuffled past her.

The boy had been unflappable, nattering Katniss to play a card game that Finnick had taught him called Go Fish; all the while the woman was bracing for an emergency signal to blast across her communicuff, announcing the President had been shot on sight by Rio's army corps and the Hovercraft should brace for an immediate retreat. When no such thing came through, she'd been able to calm just enough to consent to coloring with him a short while later. There was nothing to her art skills, but it seemed to make the boy happy to be able to create something.

"Are you okay, Katniss?" Rye asks so suddenly she startles.

"Sure I am. Why wouldn't I be?" she lies—and poorly to boot.

"I dunno. You seem sorta funny. Maybe like you're a little scared or something."

She tries to resist looking at the boy like he's psychic, even though he's clearly been able to read her like a book.

"I'm a little scared too," the boy says impassively. "'Cause my daddy's a little scared, even though he won't tell me so. It's sort of a big deal what he's doing, you know."

Katniss is intrinsically aware of this. How a seven-year-old is similarly aware baffles her.

"But my daddy is real smart, so don't be too scared for him, okay, Katniss?"

"I think _you're_ pretty smart, Rye." Katniss reaches over and ruffles his hair in the manner she's seen Finnick Odair and the President do time and time again, and is surprised when it not only feels natural, but the boy beams at her happily in return. "Here, will you finish my drawing for me? I don't think I'm doing too good a job with it."

"It's not that bad," the boy giggles.

"But I'm sure you could make it better. I'm just going to go to the bathroom, alright? I'll be just a minute," she tells him before hoisting herself up and locking the lavatory door behind her. She only intends to splash some water on her face, but an odd nagging feeling as she's toweling off her cheeks has her pulling the waistband of her pants back just slightly and peering downwards between her legs.

"Oh, son of a…" she mutters to herself. _This_ is inconvenient timing, to say the least. She drops to her knees in front of the sink and tears open the cabinet doors; she could probably be reprimanded for going through what could be considered the President's personal items, but surely Delly Cartwright has been on this Hovercraft before and experienced a similar biological inconvenience. It takes a few minutes of searching, but she finally finds the item she's looking for and eases herself down onto the commode to do her business.

When she's washed up, she reemerges from the bathroom hoping to make light of her lengthy absence by proposing she and Rye go on the hunt for some ice cream in the Hovercraft kitchenette. She tries not to allow her skin to prickle in panic when she finds that the little boy has vacated the seat she'd left him in, opting instead to peek her head into the adjoining room to see where he's wandered off to. When she still doesn't spot him, she purses her lips together and trills out a simple little four note tune that had been something of Annie's she'd taught her in training—a signal that Rye knows means to stop fooling around and return to her side immediately.

He doesn't respond and most definitely doesn't reappear at her side like he has previous times. She feels her eye twitch and her blood run a little cold.

"Rye? Rye, where are you? This isn't a funny time for hide and seek, okay?"

Still nothing. She purses her lips and repeats the tune, a little louder and more shrill than before. "Rye! Get out here now!"

She's storming off towards the kitchenette, fully prepared to drag the boy back by his ear if it'll get him to listen to her when she hears it: the loud, piercing first notes of an emergency klaxon. She has to cover her ears with her hands for a second to get used to the noise, releasing them only when a craft attendant bustles by her hurriedly.

"It's the aft door!" the red-headed woman calls out to a similarly coifed man behind her.

"Someone opened it?" the man shoots back.

Katniss doesn't wait for a response before she barrels past both, hollering Rye's name. When she comes across the ajar door the attendants were speaking of, she pushes it open and hurries down the stairs just in time to see a blonde head of curls bouncing across the tarmac the craft sits on.

"Rye! Rye, stop, don't move another muscle!" she shouts at him. The boy turns in place guiltily and stays still as Katniss rounds on him and places her hands on his shoulders. She gives him a shake and pants as she looks into his glistening eyes. "Don't ever, ever, _ever_ leave the Hovercraft without telling me and letting me accompany you! I whistled for you, didn't you hear me?"

"N-No…"

"When two people have a signal with one another, they have to listen for it and return it. They have to stay close enough that they can hear it or else bad things could happen. Did you ever wander off on Annie like this?"

"N-No…but…"

"No! No buts, you scared me to death!"

"I j-just wanted t-to…"

"Katniss? Rye, what's happened?" the melodic tenor of the President's voice says from behind them. Katniss stiffens and stands at attention, willing herself not to die of mortification at first losing the man's child and then yelling at him right in front of him.

"I j-just wanted t-to play with them, Daddy…" Rye stammers as tears roll down his cheeks. His hand points several hundred yards across the tarmac to a wide field near the impressive Presidential palace; a gaggle of children about Rye's age stand looking at one another and back at the foreigners in utter confusion.

The President crouches in front of his son quickly and shakes his head. "You weren't supposed to leave the craft, Rye; you promised me. Why would you do that and scare Katniss, huh?"

"I j-just looked out the w-window and saw them playing, and they s-saw me and waved at m-me. They're playing that g-game that you and Mr. Finnick played and I w-wanted to t-try…" The child is in near hysterics and every other word is punctuated by a hiccup.

Only after the President reaches up and wipes away Rye's tears with the pads of his thumbs and begins to murmur to him softly does Katniss notice the people standing nearby, amongst them Haymitch Abernathy, Gale, Thresh, Thom, and Finnick Odair who's speaking rapidly in no language Katniss has ever heard to a woman with dark hair and dark bronze skin. Katniss deduces that this must be President Espinoza. Her cheeks flush hotly and she averts her gaze, wishing for any other first impression she could make on the leader of a foreign nation than the one she's just embarrassed herself with.

"You can't ever, ever, ever do that again, Rye, do you understand? Tell me you understand." The President's voice is still fatherly and loving, but vastly more stern than any Katniss has heard come across his lips around his son. The boy's curls bounce in his eyes as he nods his head.

"Yes sir," Rye replies glumly.

"You need to apologize to Katniss right now. You cannot ever scare her like that again."

"I won't. I'm s-sorry, Katniss. I won't ever wander off again," the boy says, tugging on the hem of Katniss's jacket and looking up at her apologetically. She imagines a show of emotion towards the boy is ill-advised in a time such as this, but she can't help but crouch down and fold him gently in her arms. He nestles against her chest, his own still heaving with his recovering sobs and she places her hand on the crown of his head.

"We have a signal, Rye. Okay? When you hear it, what will you do?"

"Find you. I'll always stay where I can hear it from now on, I promise."

Katniss spies the President looked at the boy affectionately for a moment before turning to Odair and the stately woman on his left. The President speaks slowly so that Odair can translate his words as he says them, and the other President nods along in understanding.

"Rye, come here. I want you to meet someone," the President says, holding his arm out for his son. The boy takes it obediently and looks up at the woman with a timid smile on his tear-streaked face.

"This is President Consuela Espinoza. And she'd like you to meet someone else, someone I think you were already taking it upon yourself to meet," the man continues. The woman nods kindly at Rye before stepping aside and nudging a small girl towards the small boy. The girl's hair is double plaited and her simple dress is a red and white pattern that doesn't look too dissimilar from a plaid dress Katniss remembers wearing once or twice as a child. The older woman turns and says something to the girl in their language that makes the child smile brightly.

"Rye, President Espinoza would like to know if you and her daughter would like to play while she and your father take a tour of the city," Finnick Odair tells Rye gently. The boy looks up at his father and then to Katniss before setting his eyes back on the little girl, still beaming broadly; he nods his head excitedly.

"I'd…I'd like that very much," Rye says. Katniss swears he sees the tiniest blush cross the boy's cheeks. A second later, her gaze meets that of her President's; it's everything she can do to not feel similarly flushed the way he's looking at her.

_It's just the humidity_, she tells herself. _It's just the heat and the humidity in the air._

* * *

**A/N: Thank you all yet again for your enthusiasm and excitement about this story. I'm trying very hard to balance romance and politics in this story and I'm thrilled you all are enjoying it. I adore hearing from you all on here and on Tumblr (where I'm also _baronesskika_), so please don't be strangers...I really value your input and comments and it absolutely helps inspire me to write faster!  
**

_**sohypothetically,**** megsonfire**_** and _Court81981_ are the queens of my typo-riddled, passive-voice prone heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you ladies for catching them and making my writing not completely incoherent. **

**Happy reading until next time, lovelies!**


	6. Preacher

_**November**_

It's called the Festival of Lights, and it's Rye Mellark's very favorite time of the year.

The little boy knows the stories of the holidays of pre-Panem because Haymitch Abernathy has an affinity for old texts and ancient history. He knows about the folks called the Christians and the Jews, and has a very loose understanding of the ephemeral being known as "God," for whom the Christians and Jews celebrated holidays. But as no one believes in this "God" fellow anymore, the holiday known in Panem as the Festival of Lights has less to do with ancient beliefs, and more to do with things that sparkle and shine. And Rye adores things that sparkle and shine.

Part of why Rye Mellark loves the Festival of Lights so very much is because his birthday happens to fall on November 12th—the day that their home District celebrates their tree-lighting. Rye's very first memory was of the bright lights flickering on the tall maple tree in front of the Twelve Justice Building on the night of his third birthday. He'd been sitting on his father's shoulders and if not for Peeta's quick reflexes, the little boy might have fallen hard on the concrete because of how he startled when the massive tree was suddenly illuminated. But Peeta had caught him just in time, and hoisted him into his arms so he could whisper into his ear.

"Your mama thought the Twelve tree was the most beautiful thing in the world, Ry-Ry. Until she saw your eyes the day you were born. Then she knew that your eyes were the most beautiful thing in the world," Peeta had told his son. The toddler had blinked several times, ridding his long eyelashes of the fat snowflakes that caught in them, and considered this concept of his mother and the lights of the tree in front of him. At three years old, there was nothing he considered more special about himself than anything else, let alone the color of his eyes. Therefore in his mind, the gleaming display in front of him _had_ to be the most wonderful thing in the world.

His mama, after all, was a Very Smart Lady.

As he tromps through the Capitol train station obediently at Katniss's side, he regales her with the exciting tale of his very first childhood memory, if only so that he can repeat the next fact again for what is bound to be the fourteenth or fifteenth time that week alone.

"And my daddy says—um, he says, that because he's the president this year, and he's the most senior official in the, um…"

"The government," Katniss prompts him patiently.

"Yeah! Because he's the president, he gets to turn on the tree in the Twelve square! But this is the most exciting part, Katniss…are you listening, Katniss?"

"Yes, Rye; what's the most exciting part?"

In that instant, his father appears from seemingly nowhere and kneels in front of him with his back turned. "This year Master Rye Mellark gets to light the District Twelve Festival of Lights tree…isn't that right, Duckie?" Rye grins and takes that as his clue to climb on his father's back for a piggy-back ride.

"Yesss!" Rye shouts jubilantly from his new spot above the heads of all the rest of the adults around him. He looks back at Katniss, who seems to be averting her gaze from them, which seems funny to Rye since he's pretty sure Katniss is supposed to be watching him just about all the time.

"Well, that is quite exciting," Katniss says, her voice a little quieter now than it had been a moment before. Rye thinks this is also funny because Katniss has such a pretty voice. Why doesn't she speak louder, especially when his daddy is around? She always chooses that time to get extra quiet, like she's afraid of him or something. Who could possibly be afraid of his daddy?

"Daddy…do you suppose they have the Festival of Lights where Chela lives?" Rye says thoughtfully, drumming his fingertips on his father's shoulders as they approach the platform where the Presidential train whirrs and hums as it waits for them to board. Rye likes the train just fine, but he prefers the Hovercraft. Despite his protestations, they'll be taking the train to the different Districts over the next two weeks for the various tree lighting ceremonies. He has to reluctantly agree that the bed he sleeps in on the train when he travels with his father is more comfy than the overstuffed seats on the Hovercraft.

His daddy sets him down as two men in dark suits like Katniss, Gale, Thresh, and Thom wear usher the pair of them up three small steps and into the belly of one of the train cars. They have to walk just a bit farther until they get to the very last car—the one with wide floor to ceiling windows and thick puffy sofas all along the sides—and Rye follows suit when his father drops into one of the chairs with a sigh. He tucks his legs underneath him and leans his face on his hand the same way his dad does.

"I don't know what holidays they celebrate in Rio, Duckie. Chela's mother and I didn't do a lot of talking about that sort of stuff," Peeta says.

This disappoints Rye. The pair of adults had spent an _awful_ lot of time talking while they were down there; what could they possibly be talking about in all that time that didn't include the best time of the year? For his part, he'd wanted to ask Chela all sorts of questions about what sort of games she played, what she liked best in school, and when her birthday is, but when he did, she hadn't understood him. It was frustrating wanting to talk to someone who didn't know what he was saying, but they still had fun playing together. Rye maybe had more fun playing with Chela Espinoza than he had with anyone else in his life—even if she was a _girl_.

"Do you suppose I could ask her in the letter Mr. Finnick is helping me write?" Rye asks brightly. Peeta shrugs his shoulders, but his laugh is soft and kind.

"I don't see any reason why not, Duck. You're sure spending a lot of time writing this mysterious letter that you won't let me read."

"You don't know how to read or write in Spanish, Daddy. How would you know what any of it says?" Rye responds with a sigh. Sometimes he has to explain _everything_ to his father.

"How do you know Mr. Finnick is writing it correctly?" Peeta responds with a tickle to Rye's side. The boy squeaks and curls into a ball to protect himself from his father's teasing.

"I trust Mr. Finnick 'cause you trust Mr. Finnick. Duh, Daddy."

His father likes this response just fine because he reaches over and tousles his hair. Rye shakes his curls back in place and grins.

"Do you remember what Ms. Effie said about how this trip is gonna work, Rye?" his father says, his tone turning serious enough to make the boy straighten up and pay close attention. He nods, and his father looks at him expectantly.

"We're gonna sleep on the train every night after we leave the tree ceremonies. We go to One first, then Two, then so on. You have meetings during the days and I'll be with Katniss and Auntie Delly to do my studies, and then we'll have dinners with the mayors until it's time for the ceremonies to begin," Rye repeats back dutifully, pretty confident that he's remembered everything Ms. Effie told him—mostly because Ms. Effie had said the same thing about four times.

"That's right. Until we get home, anyway," his father says with a grin, and Rye practically bounces in his seat.

"Because you took the twelfth off because it's my birthday, and we're gonna spend the whole day with Grandma and Grandpa and go see Mama!" Rye chirps happily.

For a second, a storm cloud seems to overtake his father's eyes, but he blinks it away quickly and nods. "Ms. Effie drilled that into your head, huh?"

Rye looks around quickly. Since the train was secured prior to their boarding, he and his father actually have some privacy for once, so the boy feels comfortable enough to lean forward and beckon Peeta's face closer to his. "Can I tell you a secret, Daddy?"

"Of course."

"Ms. Effie is sorta scary."

"Oh, Duck…she's _terrifying_," Peeta replies with a smirk. Rye giggles and nestles into his father's side for a sweet moment before Peeta pecks the top of his head and gets to his feet. "Come on, I'll tuck you in for bed."

"So early?" Rye whines.

"It's way past your bedtime as is, kiddo. Just 'cause we're on a trip…"

"I knooow," the boy huffs and follows his father obediently back through the cars to the sleeping car. As his father leads him into the small bedroom he'll be occupying for the next two weeks, Rye watches with wide eyes as Peeta runs almost head-long into Katniss.

"Excuse me, Mr. President, I'm sorry," Katniss stammers quickly, stepping back into the doorway of her own bunk to let the pair pass.

"Not at all, Katniss, we just didn't…erm, have you gotten comfortable?"

Rye watches as Katniss nods quickly and looks straight down at her shoes. She does that an awful lot, the little boy thinks. Which seems silly when your eyes are as pretty as his guard's are. What he finds even stranger is how his father keeps staring at her, even though she won't look back at him. Rye doesn't understand this much either.

"Is there anything else required of me this evening, sir? Gale said I was released for the night, but I wasn't sure…"

"Oh, I'm going to sleep, Katniss!" the boy says to her. "Daddy says just 'cause we're on a trip doesn't mean I get a better bedtime."

Katniss smiles a very small but easy smile at him. Rye likes it when he can make Katniss smile.

"Your bedtime is just fine how it is, sir." Peeta's tone is firm and his fingers squeeze the boy's shoulder a little harder than he usually does. Rye cranes his neck up to look at him in confusion, and he might be making things up in his own head, but he swears, _swears_ that he sees his father's cheeks get just a little bit rosy.

"Have a good night, Katniss. We'll be arriving in One around 7 in the morning and Rye will see you then. Say goodnight, kiddo?" Peeta tells his son.

"Sweet dreams, Katniss!" Rye replies and leads the way into his own bedroom. His father supervises as he changes into his pajamas and brushes his teeth in the en suite before he nestles down on the pillows.

"Sorry I'm going to have to work so much the next couple of days, Ry-Ry. But we'll have lots of fun at home for your birthday, I promise," Peeta says with a sigh.

"It's alright, Daddy," Rye says with a shrug.

Peeta looks like he wants to argue, but thinks better of it. He kisses Rye's forehead and taps his nose with the tip of his finger.

"'Night there, Duck."

"Night, Daddy," Rye responds.

His father switches out the light and closes the door tightly behind him. As soon as he hears his father's footsteps disappear down the hall, the boy rolls out of bed and unzips the small bag he'd packed for himself of trinkets from his room and fumbles around until his fingers close around the plush leg of his orange tabby cat stuffie. He tucks it under his arm as he crawls back into bed.

"Daddy and Katniss are super weird sometimes, Maysi. You'd think by the way they act around each other they like each other or somethin'" He shakes his head and closes his eyes to allow sleep to take him.

* * *

Auntie Delly has quite a lot of opinions, chiefly about the trees in the western Districts. On the nights of those tree lightings, Rye had gaped at the imposing masses of limbs and lights, glittering crystal and gem ornaments, and thought with a tiny sense of shame and betrayal that the trees seemed so much, well, _nicer_ than the tree he remembers back in Twelve. His Auntie, however, had clicked her tongue and muttered something as the lights flicked on in Districts One through Four, and led Rye by the hand back to the train with Peeta walking closely on the boy's other side.

"Well, _they_ listened to your edict a little better than One and Two did. Not as well as Three, of course," Delly mutters to Peeta. Rye kicks a rock with the toe of his shoe and tries to keep up with his Auntie's hastening steps.

"The individuality is what makes these things special, Dell. They used the lights we commissioned out of Three and that's all I care about. They'll burn longer, light the way a bit more," Peeta replies with a shrug.

"Beetee is one of the finest writers in the country, and all he can come up with for these speeches is 'lighting the way through the darkness'?"

"It's not his line, it's mine," Peeta states firmly. "I think it's important. It's a decent turn of phrase, even if it is cliché."

Delly scoffs and puts her hand on Rye's shoulder to lead him up the steps and onto the train car. "If you insist, _Mr. President_."

The First Lady heads off into her own train car and Peeta shakes his head as she goes. Rye tugs on his father's jacket until the older man gives him his attention.

"Why's Auntie so mad at you all the time, Daddy?"

"I wish I knew, bub. Did you say goodnight to Katniss? You won't see her tomorrow; you'll be spending the day with Thresh instead."

Rye looks over his shoulder at his guard, who's been completely silent the entire walk to the train to the point the boy has almost forgotten she was there.

"Oh yeah! Are you excited to see your family, Katniss?"

Katniss hasn't smiled at him too easily in the last several days, and it makes Rye sort of sad to see her like that. He can tell she's not happy, despite her trying to tell him otherwise—repeatedly.

"Sure, Rye. Mr. President, I don't really need…"

"It's your Festival Day, Katniss. Please, enjoy the day with your family. Good night," Peeta says with a wave of his hand. Rye gives her a quick hug around the waist before watching her disappear into her own quarters for the evening.

He notices his father is watching her just as closely.

* * *

It feels like it takes _forever_, but finally, finally, _finally_ the train pulls into the District Twelve station, and Rye wants to leap from it while it's still moving. Even in his young mind, he knows that his and his father's home District isn't the fanciest (like One), or the wealthiest (like Two), or the prettiest (Four, according to Auntie Delly, Seven according to his father), not by a long shot, but it's still home. It's his home, despite how much nicer his bedroom is in the Presidential mansion and how many friends he has at his Capitol school—Twelve still is, and always will be home.

A lot of the reason for it has everything to do with the old man with the thinning, grey-blonde hair and wrinkly eyes that is waiting for him patiently on the far-side of the rail tracks.

"Daddy! Daddy, it's Grandpa! I can go see him now, right?!" Rye says as he bounces excitedly at his father's side.

"You need to stay with me or Katniss or Auntie Delly, you know that," Peeta reminds him patiently.

"He's right there! You can see him, right? See, Katniss, that's my grandpa right there," Rye says, pointing his index finger against the glass.

"I'll tell you what, Rye…when the train stops and the other agents do their preliminary sweep of the station, I'll race you to him," Katniss offers. Rye's eyes go wide and his smile crosses his face so broadly that it actually sort of hurts after a minute.

"Deal," he whispers in gratitude to the woman, and waits patiently as the train screeches to a halt. Rye doesn't pay any attention to the bevy of agents except for his own, whom he keeps looking up at eagerly every time her eyes flit from place to place. He almost vibrates out of his shoes when her communicuff buzzes and she holds it to her lips.

"You ready there, Rye?" she says in the tone of voice that should indicate that she's smiling, even though there isn't a trace of that anywhere on her face.

All the same the boy nods excitedly, and takes off in a sprint as soon as the door in front of him opens. Katniss's longer legs allow her to keep stride with him easy enough, but he still reaches the older man first and is happily enveloped in a gigantic bear hug as soon as he's close enough to him for their arms to touch. His grandfather smells of baked bread and dill, of sweet spices and vanilla, and that thing that, in Rye's head, is just intrinsically Twelve. He might consider his father his best friend in the world, but his grandfather is his very, very favorite human being _ever_.

He begins to babble at top speed in his grandfather's willing ear, spouting off everything about the things he's seen over the last eleven days, about all the trees and the yellow fields of District Eleven that his father maintains look a lot better now than they did a couple of months ago—but the old man stops him with a thumb pressed against his lips and a broad grin on his own face.

"First thing first, little one…introduce me to this lovely guard of yours, will you?" his grandfather asks, looking appraisingly at Katniss, who is spinning in a slow circle to check her surroundings.

"Woops. I forgot, Grandpa, I'm sorry. This is Katniss; Katniss, this is my Grandpa 'Zekiel," the boy says brightly. He watches as Katniss very tentatively accepts the eldest Mellark's hand and wills his guard to show his grandfather her smile that is still so absent from her face these days. It doesn't come, and Rye again wonders why. Katniss is so pretty when she smiles.

"Duck, you're not talking your grandpa's ear off already, are you?" Peeta asks as he comes up from behind them and offers his hand to his own father, an action that turns soon enough into a warm embrace. Rye grins happily and shrugs his shoulders.

"Only a little Daddy, sheesh," he says as he takes Katniss's hand to allow the older men their time for their reunion. Katniss looks down at him with just the slightest quirk of her lips, as if she's trying to smile for him but can't quite manage it.

"Are you okay, Katniss?" he whispers as the other guards move the group of them towards a car waiting out front amongst the crowd of Twelve residents straining to get a view of the President. "You shouldn't be sad today if you are. It's Twelve's Lights day, and it's _my_ birthday! It should be a happy day!"

"I'm not sad, Rye. But let's focus on it being your birthday, how about that?" Katniss offers quietly.

_This_ Rye can get behind.

* * *

There are traditions that accompany Rye's birthday that typically extend beyond the actual day of his birth. This year, however, everything is condensed into one glorious day of being utterly spoiled with attention by his entire family. He helps his grandfather bake his birthday cake and his grandmother fix a quick lunch for everyone. His auntie tries to have him take a spelling test that he's missed from one of his classes, but his daddy steps in and reminds Delly that it can wait one more day.

By the time the sun begins to wane, Rye feels particularly loved and fawned over, even if Katniss has been particularly hands-off all day. It's partially because she and Thresh are the only main guards on his and his father's detail today so that Thom and Gale can go off and see their own families while they're in Twelve, but still, she's never like this! The pair of them take turns walking the perimeter of the house and checking in with a smattering of the other agents that never really seem to go away. But unlike Thresh, who knows the Mellark family from his many months of guarding the President, Katniss stands quietly and inconspicuously to the side, even when Rye attempts to involve her in their activities. He's mostly given up when it's time to bundle up to head into the square.

"Wait!" his Grandma Carine trills as Peeta helps Rye button up his pea coat over his scarf. "We didn't take your picture for the year yet!"

"We can take right before Ulysses and Ash's after-party, surely…" his father objects with a small sigh.

"I thought we were going to see Mama," Rye says innocently, noticing the sad look that once again takes over his father's face.

"It'll take five minutes, Peeta, really," Carine says as she ushers the two young men towards the carpeted staircase that leads from the bakery kitchen into the family living area. Rye helpfully unbuttons his coat and holds it out expectantly to Katniss.

"Can you hold this for me, Katniss, please?" he asks softly, hoping to get a smile out of her with his good manners. It still doesn't work, but she takes the coat from him all the same. He pads up a couple of the steps to where his father is already perched halfway up. Rye turns when he's nestled against his father's chest and grins broadly as his grandmother takes a few different versions of the same pose, chirping that Peeta should smile wider and that Rye should stop making such a silly face. She seems satisfied after several snaps and allows the pair to continue getting ready for their departure. When the boy finds his guard, he sees that she's discovered the framed picture of the same pose from last year.

"My grandma takes one every year on my birthday," Rye explains to Katniss, not noticing how he's seemed to startle her out of her staring fit. "Well, except the day I was born 'cause I was too little. But every birthday after that!"

Katniss nods and takes over the duty of bundling Rye back up in his coat. "Always in the same spot?" she asks idly, her eyes ever so quickly flitting over to where his daddy shrugs on his own coat and chats with Thresh.

"Yup! I dunno why the stairs, but Grandma Carine likes it that way. It's sort of funny, huh? I have a picture every year in the same place with my daddy, and he usually looks the same but I always look so different." Rye's never really thought about it this way, but now that it's occurred to him, it seems so natural. Maybe he's learning new things now that he's another whole year older.

"It's nice to have traditions," Katniss says, her voice quiet and far away. Rye wonders if she's thinking about her own traditions she has with her mama and daddy, but before he has a chance to ask her about it, his daddy calls out to him.

"We're gonna be late if we don't hurry, Duckie," Peeta says, holding his hand out for his son. "You don't wanna miss your chance to light the tree, do you?"

The thought is too horrific for Rye to consider, so he darts after his father and practically force-marches the man towards the nearby town square. "Don't scare me like that, Daddy, sheesh!"

* * *

Rye sits off to the far left of the podium his father stands behind for his speech. After eleven nights of the same remarks coming from the man's mouth about the importance of this time of year, of how crucial coming together as a nation is in light of recent events, of Auntie Delly's least favorite line of 'lighting the way in the dark,' Rye has grown quite bored with listening to it. All the same, he sits obediently in his seat and tries not to kick the legs with his heels too many times to attract one of his auntie's glares, and thinks instead about how the massive tree that looms to his father's right will look when he gets to flip the switch in a few minutes.

He's not expecting his father's words to snap him out of his reverie like they do.

"…But in spite of our challenges as a nation, of the problems I've committed to finding a solution to both here at home and far away, I'm reminded today that what Panem stands for is what Twelve stands for: hard work. Pride in ourselves. Humility. Remembering that while we might not be the largest or the wealthiest, what we lack in numbers and bounty we more than makes up for in spirit and perseverance. And while I'm expected not to favor a District over any other, I stand before you a son of District Twelve—and never have I been more proud and honored to be such. May you stay in good health, and may the odds be ever in Twelve's favor. Thank you."

Rye barely registers Mr. Finnick and Mr. Beetee in the chairs behind him when they begin whispering tersely to one another as the gathered crowd roars their approval and leaps to their feet to applaud. The little boy beams from ear to ear as he rushes to his father's side and hugs him around the middle.

Peeta leads Rye to a large switch off to the right side of the stage. Rye practically vibrates with excitement as his father crouches behind him and whispers into his ear how and when to throw the lever to illuminate the still-darkened tree before them.

"What do you suppose Mama would have thought of my speech, Duck?" Peeta says to the boy as the crowd begins to count down from ten.

The child arches his neck backwards and grins. "She would have liked it, Daddy. I sure did."

And after all: Rye's mama was a Very Smart Lady.

* * *

He's beginning to grow tired from the long day they've had, and it shows with how he lags behind his father as they walk towards the far side of town. Thresh had insisted upon taking the car so the return to the Mayor's mansion (Rye still has trouble remembering that 'the Mayor' is also 'Grandpa Ulysses' sometimes) is more expeditious, but Peeta insists on walking, just like he and Rye always do for this particular errand. The male guard walks a few paces ahead of the two Mellarks and Katniss brings up the rear, her pensive stare never leaving her face as they get further and further from the austere festivities and the simple but brightly burning Festival of Lights' tree. Rye thought the decorations this year were particularly pretty: orange, red, and yellow at the top, black and charcoal grey at the bottom, and when the simple lights that his daddy had commissioned District Three to make for all the District trees hit them just right, it seemed like the entire thing was set ablaze, like a lump of coal in the hearth.

As they get closer and closer to where his mama is, Rye's happy that it's just him and Daddy and Thresh and Katniss. Some walks, his daddy had patiently explained to Ms. Effie and Mr. Haymitch, people need to take alone. He blows out a slow breath through his pursed lips, trying to remember what his teacher had said about why breath comes out looking like steam in cold weather but mostly blanking until he sees the familiar sight in the not-so-far distance. His father's hand squeezes his own, which he returns gently without looking up. In his other arm, his father has three simple bouquets of flowers tucked into the crook of his elbow that Rye himself had picked out from a stall in the square. He thinks they'll look particularly pretty amongst the blanket of freshly fallen snow that dusted the District that morning.

"Katniss? You still behind us?" Thresh calls back suddenly, stopping Peeta and Rye with a simple wave of his hand. Katniss has fallen several steps behind, and looks towards the graveyard with wide, almost scared eyes. Rye wonders if she's afraid of ghosts or something.

She shakes herself and jogs to catch up. "Sorry, Thresh. My apologies, Mr. President, I didn't realize…"

Peeta shakes his head at Katniss as if to stop her from explaining herself. "I suppose we could have explained this little errand better. No apology needed, Katniss." Rye isn't used to his daddy's voice sounding so far-away, even though they've made this same visit every year on his birthday as long as he's been alive. It's another one of their traditions.

The Mellark men know the way to the first grave, which is the closest to the main entrance and is certainly the one that matters most to the little boy. They have to arch around a small copse of bare trees and cross a small footbridge over a frozen stream to get to Rye's mother's headstone. When they're a few feet away, Peeta lets go of the boy's hand and passes one of the bouquets to him. From there, Rye walks alone to the simple little cement marker and brushes away the snow with his mitten-clad fingers. The letters engraved on the stone were amongst the first words that Rye learned how to read.

_Margaret Ivy Undersee Mellark_  
_Born: 11 April — Died: 16 November_  
_aged 24_  
_Beloved friend and new mother_

The boy lays the flowers down at the headstone and squats so neither the knees of his trousers nor his rear get damp from the snow.

"Hi there, Mama. It's me and Daddy…did you miss us?"

They only move on after both he and his daddy have said all they want to say. Rye takes his father's hand and pretends that he doesn't see him wiping at his eyes quickly with the back of his gloved hand. Rye never cries when they visit his mama's grave because he knows she isn't _really_ there. She's off in the great beyond, looking down on them, and hopefully she's happy. But Daddy sometimes gets sad, so Rye makes sure he gives his hand an extra tight squeeze.

He knows Thresh and Katniss aren't too far behind them, but for a moment or two, Rye pretends that it's just him and his daddy amongst all the souls in the graveyard. He pretends that instead of just imagining to talk to his mama's ghost, she's actually sitting there listening and ready to respond to everything they have to say. And it's not only her, but the souls of the others whose graves they visit every year.

He isn't afraid of the graveyard, not even a little bit. The only thing that makes him just a little bit nervous every year is seeing his own name on one of the graves they stop in front of. It's not only _his_ name, of course—it was his uncle's first and foremost, but that doesn't make it any less spooky to see it scrawled on a headstone.

Katniss is so quiet that Rye barely notices her as his father lays the second bouquet of flowers on his older brother's—and Rye's namesake's—grave. Her squeak of surprise gives her away.

"Oh, don't be upset, Katniss," Rye tells her innocently. "My uncle died ages and ages ago, way before I was ever born. I'm just named for him, that's all!"

She nods her head and steps back. She rounds to Thresh's side and seems to be whispering something in his ear when Peeta puts his hand gently on the crown of his son's head and turns him back.

"What story do you want to hear about Uncle Rye, Duck?" his father offers as part of their tradition. Snow begins to fall once again and the boy has to blink the snowflakes from his eyelashes.

"Mmm…how about the one where you hit him in the eye with the hammer?" Rye says with a giggle. His father rolls his eyes but obliges all the same, leaving out no detail of how at three-years-old, he had simply arched his arms way too far backwards as he'd been playing and accidentally clipped his six-year-old brother right in the eyeball. He's in the middle of describing all the places he'd hid from his partially blinded brother as he ran from him when Rye notices Katniss wander off in the other direction. They don't have to move far to lay down the flowers at the grave of his Grandma Armarna, his Grandpa Ezekiel's first wife who died the same day as his Uncle Rye did. His daddy is always particularly solemn at that grave, and to a point forgets Rye is even there for the time he spends thinking about the grandmother his son never knew. Rye takes this chance to head towards Katniss when his father crouches in front of the third gravestone, counting on the his quickness to get him to her side before Thresh notices he's gone.

This time it's Rye that startles his guard as he peers over her shoulder where she's kneeling in the snow in front of a headstone that the boy doesn't recognize. He's about to tell her that she'll get cold and wet, and might catch her death like Grandma Carine always says will happen when you play in the snow too long when he screws his eyes to focus on the letters etched on the gravestone Katniss is looking at.

"Oh! Katniss…isn't that your last name?" he says thoughtlessly. The woman seems to jump out of her skin and rears around to face him. He's noticing that her cheeks are streaked with tears as her mouth opens, perhaps to scold him about wandering away from his father or berate him for startling her when he hears both Peeta and Thresh call out to him.

He figured that of all the days he wouldn't get yelled at, today would be one of them. He huffs exasperatedly and turns to regard his father, who indeed is already forming the letters of his name with his lips as the boy hangs his head.

Despite knowing he's about to be hollered at, he feels compelled to ask one final time, "Katniss…why does that gravestone have _your_ last name on it?"

His simple question seems to stop everyone in their respective tracks. Peeta looks down to the gravestone to read it for himself, and instantly appears to forget that he was about to yell at his son for wandering off. His father's blue eyes seek out Katniss's bloodshot grey ones, a gaze she reluctantly but dutifully returns. Rye feels an electricity in the air, almost like the way it feels before it begins to storm as his father says, very simply: "I…I don't know how I didn't remember you."

* * *

Thresh leads him away to allow his father and his guard to talk freely. Rye keeps peeking behind him as they walk back to his mother's grave, far enough to give them privacy but not so far that neither Katniss nor the President can't easily make eye contact with the little boy.

"I didn't think I'd get in _that_ much trouble just because I went to see what Katniss was doing," Rye says glumly. Next to him, Thresh sighs.

"I don't think you're in trouble, Little Duck. But your father and Agent Everdeen need to speak without us present. You can understand that, right?"

Rye nods, even if he doesn't understand exactly. He wants to know what's being said—whether or not it's about him, or his mama, or about his uncle or grandmother, or the name on the headstone that had made Katniss look so spooked. But the pair are too far away from he and Thresh to make out anything they say, not to mention the fact they'd practically been whispering as soon as his father had said what he did.

"What did Daddy mean, though, Thresh? Why would he know Katniss…she grew up in District Five! Did he know you before you became his guard?"

The man shakes his head. "Your father will need to explain these things to you, son. I don't know any more than you do."

Rye sighs and squats in front of his mama's grave again. He knows the man can't go too far, but he asks all the same, "Thresh, can I talk to my mama alone, please?"

The man indicates where he'll be in close proximity and Rye waits for him to go before he begins to whisper, too. He picks up one of the flowers from the bunch and dusts the freshly fallen snow off the letters of his mama's name.

"Mama, I know you probably miss Daddy like he misses you…but just between you and me, I think he likes Katniss a little. And I like her lots, too—she's so pretty and nice, and she takes real good care of me when I'm at school. She won't let nothin' bad happen to me, I'm sure of it. But you know Daddy, Mama, and you know he doesn't always get things sometimes, so if you could, I dunno…remind him a little bit? I dunno if that's a thing you can do, but I bet if anyone can, it's you. Right?"

He sighs and glances over in the distance where his father and Katniss are standing. He wraps his arms around his legs and looks at them thoughtfully. They don't seem to be talking, but they sure are staring at each other awful hard. Rye shakes his head.

"I think it's kinda good I got my smarts from you, Mama. Daddy isn't so much sometimes."

Rye knows this much is true. His father has told him time and time again—his mama was a Very Smart Lady.

* * *

**A/N: OneRepublic gets me. Their song 'Preacher' is the title inspiration for this particular chapter.  
**

**Three cheers for S. and Meggie and Court for cranking out their edits for this chapter in under 24 hours of my sending it to them! You ladies are my spirit guides, heroes, and the sorts of writers I aspire to emulate in all ways. Love love love you.**

**Thank you _all _once again for your tireless support of this story. The wonderful reviews and PMs I received regarding the latest chapter definitely inspired me to write this chapter out as quickly as I did, and I humbly ask for you to keep them coming if you would be so very kind - we are about to embark on a HUGE plot arc in the next couple of chapters and I adore hearing your theories about what might be coming next, even if I am a little cagey in my replies. ;) **

**Happy reading until we meet again, beloveds!**


	7. I Grieve (outtake from Preacher)

**A/N: While the following is _not_ a full chapter, as I'd hoped to be able to post sooner rather than later, it is a scene most of you fantastic reviewers really, really wanted to see in _Preacher, _but weren't privy to given the chapter's narrator. I so hope you enjoy it. Please consider it a little thank you from me to you for all your wonderful feedback.**

**I'm working as diligently as possible on the next full chapter, but it's a massively important and intricate chapter and its taking me a little longer to perfect than I hoped it would. I appreciate your continued patience and hope this little cut-scene will tide you over until the rest of my words come. **

**This scene would be nothing without S. and Meggie and Court, my beautiful betas and friends for whom I am eternally grateful. Also thanks to Peter Gabriel, whose haunting song inspired this outtake's title.**

**Happy weekend and happy reading, lovies.**

* * *

_"I...I don't know how I didn't remember you."_

Seeing the name 'Wyatt Everdeen' on the headstone brings it back to Peeta all at once. He genuinely doesn't believe how he could have forgotten Katniss to the point of thinking her a stranger, of not believing Haymitch when he said she was Seam. But then, she always was a stranger. Or at the very least, a mystery. Now that he remembers her so fervently, what he remembers is never quite being able to figure her out.

"M-Mr. President..." Katniss stammers as soon as Thresh takes Rye by the shoulder and leads him away so they can speak in private. "I...I'm sorry sir, for not saying anything before."

"Wyatt Everdeen was your father."

"Y-Yes, sir."

"And you and your family...you did live here. In Twelve. In the Seam."

"Y-Yes, sir."

"He worked in the mines?"

"He was the head of a thirty-man crew. They were the ones who went down the deepest to dig out the most precious of the ore. Mr. President, I realize I should have told you all this but I assume that Gale vetted me to you. I assumed you knew."

Peeta _should_ have known. He _should_ have asked more questions when Gale had come to him with his list of exactly one name after Annie had informed them of her pregnancy. He'd let his guard get out precisely four sentences summarizing Katniss Everdeen's service history in Five and her background before asking the man, _"Would you trust her with your life? If you asked her to take a bullet for you, would she do it?"_

_"Without a moment's hesitation, Mr. President. She's the most loyal person I've ever known. To a fault, even. She's who I would want guarding my child if I had one."_

That had been good enough for Peeta. He should have listened to Haymitch. He should have looked at Katniss's file. If he had, he wouldn't feel so blindsided right now, especially when his eyes flit over to the gravestone in question and his brain processes the date of death.

"He was at the First Frost Uprising? He was one of the miners killed when the Peacekeepers…"

She gulps and nods. The breath Peeta sucks in through his nose feels metallic and actually stings—it's mostly from the cold, of course, but there's an element of it that also comes from shock.

"Mr. President, I had no idea…truly, no idea that your family was…"

"'_In the wrong place at the wrong time_'," Peeta repeats the words his father had drilled into his head in the weeks that followed after they buried Armarna and Rye. It was the mantra he'd repeated over and over in his head when kids looked at him funny in the hallways at school and gossiped about him being the kid with the dead mom and big brother. He hated it when he was small; he hated it all the way up to the year that Ezekiel married Carine Cartwright and Delly took up the mantle of the sibling he could talk to and share anything with. By the time he stopped being bothered by it, things in the District had gotten…well, _better_.

He was a teenager when he'd finally accepted Ezekiel's words at their face value: Armarna and Rye Mellark truly were in the wrong place at the wrong time. _Collateral damage_, some might call it. No one in particular was to blame, as much as some wanted to lay blame on the roguish miners who'd taken to the streets. Ultimately, the First Frost Uprising was a boon for Twelve, particularly for the Seam, whose children gradually looked less and less starved and whose miners actually saw the sunlight a few hours any given day; despite the bloodshed of the day, the Miners Union achieved their goal for better working conditions and wages, and it showed. Peeta could feel the difference in the weight of his father's till every evening when he helped Ezekiel close the bakery. And when he'd mentioned it to his best friend—who happened to be the quiet but surprisingly headstrong and frustratingly pretty blonde-haired mayor's daughter—she'd shaken her head at him and told him it'd taken him long enough to figure that one out.

In the present, however, as he surveys the increasingly anxious look plastered across Katniss's face, he wonders if she truly understands the difference between the District prior to the First Frost Uprising and the District she's standing in now. He'd just turned eight the year Armarna and Rye died, and he seemed to recall her being roughly his age; had she even been back in the years since? Or had she and her family fled to Five to escape the memories of years of abject poverty and the untimely death of their patriarch, never to return and face those ghosts again? A quick glance at the headstone, weathered and aged and generally untended (the stark contrast the graves belonging to his late wife and mother and brother) would indicate the latter.

Suddenly Peeta feels like a royal cad for her presence in this place to begin with.

"Mr. President, something I think you need to understand about my father is that he is—was—a good man. He wanted the best for his family, and he worked hard to keep us sustained for years and years. Sometimes we'd see him only in the brief respite he'd receive to come home and nap before going back to the mines to start the entire day over again…"

"Katniss…"

"Please let me finish, sir...my sister was often ill when she was small and the herbs needed to make her medicines were hard to come by and very expensive. He had to work those sorts of hours to keep her healthy and allow us food on our table but it usually wasn't enough…"

"Katniss, I'm not…"

"Mr. President, I just need to say that my father wasn't a maniac or a madman or a traitor or whatever else you might have heard—he believed he was doing good and I believe he acted the way someone ought to when they're trying to save—"

"As do I."

Those words finally stop her circuitous speech. She stares at him incredulously for a moment before her gaze softens. "You…you don't think he…"

He smiles at her gently. "Someday, when Rye isn't 100 yards away, and we aren't standing in the snow and cold, and I'm not meant to be at my father-in-law's holiday celebration, I would very much like to explain to you why I commend the action the miners took that day. And why I don't blame them in the slightest for what happened to my family. But please know that I believe full-heartedly the good vastly outweighs the harm done, despite the loss of life—including that of your father's. As tragic as it was, I believe everything happens for a reason."

Her sigh of relief comes out like the final puff of steam being released from a kettle taken off the stove, and for a second, her normal veil of nervous energy lifts. As the snow flutters around them, sticking to the felt of the hat covering her ears and the woolen fur of his coat, a moment passes between them where Peeta stops being the President and Katniss is no longer the guard tasked with his son's protection. Their eyes are locked on one another's in such a way that those unfamiliar with the strictly-defined relationship between the two might suppose they're interrupting a moment between a pair of lovers. A gust of frigid wind picks up the tip of Katniss's braid and blows it over her shoulder. Peeta couldn't possibly explain the reason why he reaches out and tucks it back, but he knows that the careless action is what breaks them out of the moment.

He begins to stammer an apology for the inconsiderate caress when she shakes her head and nods at where Rye crouches before his mother's grave in the distance. "You have an engagement awaiting you, Mr. President. I'm quite done here." As if to prove her point, her chin stays level and does not seize another glance at the stone bearing her father's name.

"Of course. Erm…Rye knows the way to his grandparents' house, if you wouldn't mind escorting him and giving me one final moment?"

The jittery-Katniss returns like the gust of wind that turns the tip of her nose crimson, and she nods curtly as she examines her shoes. "Of course, sir. Take all the time you need."

He walks a few paces in front of her towards where Thresh watches over Rye, and crouches next to the boy to explain that he'll be along shortly. Rye kisses the tip of his nose and waves one of his mittened hands at his mother's gravestone before offering the exact same hand to Katniss so she can lead him out of the cemetery. If Katniss looks over her shoulder at him, he doesn't notice.

He reaches into the breast pocket of his coat and pulls out a small cloth packet. His fingers tenderly unfurl the little square of cotton before he places it at the very corner of Madge's gravestone. Strawberries are next to impossible to find in Twelve except in the summer, but his step-mother likes drying and preserving them for the off-season, when something sweet is a reminder that the warmth of spring and summer is never too far off. The little slivers stand out like bright red buttons on the stark white handkerchief, somehow even more fecund than the flowers their son has left for her; Peeta knows they'll make a fine treat for whatever pillaging wild creature might wander into the cemetery in the next couple of days. He glances over to where Thresh keeps his distant but constant vigil, and makes sure to lower his voice considerably as he brushes a stray few snowflakes off the pristine marble.

"I brought your favorite, Meg. Remember how hard they were to find before Carine started drying them? And how you ate up her entire winter store of them those last couple of weeks before Rye came?" he whispers, the memory coursing over him and filling him with the sort of grief he really only feels during these visits.

"I know I usually tell you about everything he gets himself into and how he keeps me on my toes, but the truth is that today is the most time I've gotten to spend with him for the better part of a year. And it kills me. He always tells me he understands and that it's okay, but I just feel like—maybe his childhood shouldn't have ended up like this. Maybe it wouldn't have if things had been different. Guess we'll never know."

He allows himself a split second to regard where Katniss and Rye had left the cemetery and ponders again how it on earth it was possible he didn't remember her. Suddenly he finds himself chuckling at himself and his stupidity. "Cripes, Meg, you probably would have remembered her, wouldn't you? You would call me a fool for not recognizing her, especially after how you teased me all those years ago. You'd have goaded me about whether or not I believed she could still sing like she did that one day. You never let me quite live it down, even after she was gone—and now I know where she went, but I never actually thought I'd…I never thought the world was quite _this_ small. I feel like such a fool. I probably am one, aren't I?

"It's just…it wasn't ever difficult with _you_, Meg. You made it easy, and at the time it just made so much sense to marry my best friend, even it was for…not the wrong reasons, of course, but you know what I mean. I wonder sometimes if you were still here beside me if I'd feel so at odds when I look at her."

He rubs his lips the way he always does when conflict and apprehension bubble up in his chest. He swallows hard and tries to shake himself out of the memory of a little girl with pigtail braids and a singing voice that made the birds outside the window stop to listen. "Cripes, what am I saying? If you were still here, you'd still be with me and none of whatever this is I'm feeling would matter. But you aren't here and somehow she is. And it…it frightens me. It terrifies me to think that maybe I never let her go to begin with. And that I don't want to. Not even a little bit. That's…I can't figure out if that's okay or not."

The incessant billowing wind chills him and a shiver runs up his spine as he straightens to standing, setting his shoulders and jaw in the manner befitting his title and blinks away the tears that threaten to spill again. "Need to go now, Meg," he says with finality. "We'll see you next year."

He nods at his guard and leads the way out of the cemetery over the crunchy white snow and back towards town. He's glad that his son is a bit ahead of him and that only Thresh accompanies him now. Some walks just need to be taken alone.


	8. Politik

_December_

It's Sunday, and Peeta shouldn't be working. The Aula should be deserted and his staff should be spending time with their families, but when the President is in his office, his staff is expected to be accounted for. Not a one of them can really be upset about it, however—not when they're less than a week away from the State of Panem address.

Under the Snow administration, the annual State of Panem address was always a dreaded evening for most politicians and viewers alike. Coriolanus Snow was a commanding public speaker, but his addresses were always the same mix of the dour, sensationalist propaganda that enough people in the Capitol and Districts drank up like white liquor, voting for him term after term to keep him in power. One of the many allegations against him that had finally elicited his fall from grace had included election tampering, a charge still being fully investigated by the special prosecutor assigned by Parliament to Snow's case, Plutarch Heavensbee.

Regardless, Peeta Mellark knows he has a daunting task ahead of him on Wednesday night when he addresses not only the entire assembly of District representatives in Parliament chambers for the first time as their president, (as opposed to 'that hot-headed kid-rep from Twelve' as he knows some had loved referring to him in years past) but also the entire nation via television. And despite how superb of a writer Beetee is and how brilliant of a public speaking coach Finnick is, Peeta has still not gotten through an entire run of the 24-minute speech to Haymitch Abernathy's satisfaction, a point that the man's running commentary is abundantly clear on.

Quite frankly, it's beginning to piss Peeta off.

"Mr. President, remember to enunciate…you're slipping into that Twelve Townie accent again."

"No, no, I don't care what you say—if the kiddo and your sister are brought up, 'First Lady' and 'my child,' not their names. They aren't the focus of the speech, _you_ are."

"Beetee, are you sure we shouldn't move Rio back to the beginning of the speech? We can keep it fresh in everyone's minds from the get-go, start on a high note and let it crescendo into…"

"Cripes, Haymitch, enough!" Peeta finally bellows. "We have three days left; we're just about out of time to make all these stupid changes!"

The sides of Haymitch's mouth twitch visibly as though he's dying to argue back despite knowing better. "This is going to be the speech that will define your presidency. I'm only interested in making sure it's as perfect as possible."

"'Defining my presidency'? I thought Rio was supposed to 'define my presidency'. Creating all those jobs in Three and Six to revamp the technology we're using to address Eleven's drought…_that's_ what's supposed to 'define my presidency,' Haymitch. Not a speech that isn't even a half-hour long, lest it bore the trousers off Parliament _and_ the nation!"

"To be fair, Mr. President—it's not the length of the speech that threatens to bore anyone. It's the size of the topic, and…" Finnick begins, but cuts himself off when he sees Peeta's eyes go wide. It's Beetee, perhaps in a misplaced moment of protectiveness over the speech he's spent countless hours perfecting, that says what the other two men are thinking.

"It's your candor as you speak, sir. You are typically so enigmatic, but for the past three hours you've been…"

"Flat as a board." Haymitch isn't even apologetic when he finishes the statement.

Peeta narrows his eyes at all three men before tossing his note cards down and running his hand through his hair. He's about to snap—something he knows he'll only regret a second later—when Haymitch clears his throat and nods to the clock on the wall.

"Why don't we, uh, take a breather, Mr. President? Get some dinner?"

"If we're eating dinner I'm going to the residence to eat there and see my son," Peeta retorts.

"By all means, sir. We'll be here whenever you return." Beetee is curt with his reply, already scribbling notes in the margins of his copy of the speech, a sure sign to Peeta that there will be entirely new content to read when he returns. He resolves then and there to take an incredibly leisurely dinner break—maybe even read Rye a second bedtime story just to prolong the inevitable.

The elevator dings cheerfully when he steps off it in front of the residence's double doors. He breezes through them, bracing himself for Rye to leap into his arms at his sudden re-appearance. When it doesn't come, he traipses into the kitchen; he badly wants an explanation as to why seeing Katniss sitting at the kitchen counter with his son guts him every time, but all thoughts that manifest in his head seem traitorous and improper. He's reminded of the latter by the way Katniss immediately leaps to her feet when he enters, and he has to motion for her to sit again. He wishes she'd stop doing that more than he wishes Finnick and Beetee would. He's said as much to the two men before, but every time they insist it's as crucial as calling him 'sir' or 'Mr. President' in respect of his office. He's sure Katniss would probably say the same thing—even if he'd very much like her to view him as a man in his own right as opposed to his title.

"You're just in time for dinner, Daddy!" Rye says brightly. "Ms. Sae just put your plate in the oven and left!"

To save the boy from sliding out of his seat to greet him, Peeta rounds the counter and pecks the crown of his head. The boy's fork is poised halfway to his mouth, and with a duck of his head, Peeta steals the bite with an impish smile. His son squeals at him. "Daddy, that was mine!"

"You can have the last bite of mine," he says with a wink before chancing a look at Katniss, who's staring pensively at her own plate. There seems to be a hint of a smile playing across her face, albeit a diminutive one. Peeta barely has his plate out in front of him and is helping himself to a glass of water when her chair squeaks out from beneath her.

"Sir, if you're finished for the evening, I'll gladly let you two have your time together," she says quietly, straightening her jacket and fidgeting with her hands. It's enough to make his stomach drop to his knees the way she's _still_ so damn nervous around him.

"Actually, I'm just up for dinner. I'll need to go back down in a little bit…" He's interrupted by Rye's whine of protest.

"So then Katniss hasta stay!" the boy exclaims.

Katniss shifts awkwardly on her feet. Peeta worries his lip for a second. "No, she doesn't, Rye. I'm going to stay until you go to sleep, and then the residence guards will keep an eye on you. But…Katniss, you're truly welcome to stay for dinner. You already have a plate."

"Yeah, Katniss! And you said you'd let me show you how to play War after dinner…"

The guard opens her mouth like she desperately wants to protest, but Peeta decides to take a chance. "Please, Katniss, stay…otherwise he'll make me play with him and I'm terrible at card games."

Her chest hitches like it might if she was laughing, and she nods her head. "Thank you, sir," she says before reclaiming her seat and tucking gracefully into her own plate of food. Peeta takes the seat on the other side of Rye and tries to resist glancing over at her in between bites. He's probably crazy for thinking he spies her eyes flitting towards him every so often as well, so he tries desperately to ignore it—even though he's largely unsuccessful.

* * *

By the light of the fire in the sitting room hearth, over the top of his Parliament briefings, Peeta keeps an eye on Rye and Katniss and the tense card game they play on the squat coffee table. Rye had animatedly taught Katniss the rules to the game with only a few reminders here and there from Peeta, but the boy seems uniquely attuned to the fact that his father is in the room, and therefore takes every opportunity he can find to consult Peeta on the progress of the game. An hour or so later, around the time that a twinge of a sleepy whine emanates from the child's voice as he complains about Katniss clearly finding a way to cheat at the game, Peeta tosses down the briefing notebook and rubs his hands together.

"I know that tone, Duck. Time for bed," he tells the boy, who only whines more insistently.

"I'm not sleepy though! And I didn't get any dessert!"

Peeta makes a mental note to remind his step-sister of his rule about Rye only getting a sweet treat after supper once a week as opposed to every night before striding over and scooping the boy up into his arms. "Dessert is a privilege, kiddo, never a right. You know that."

The boy grumbles and puts his arms around his father's neck. Over his shoulder, Peeta can see that Katniss has stiffened once again, likely in preparation to take off as soon as he leaves the room and she is dismissed—but some strange voice in the recesses of his brain makes him speak up. "Katniss, if you wouldn't mind…I'd like talk with you for a moment once I get him settled."

Her grey eyes go wide and her tongue nervously darts out to moisten her lips. "Is something the matter, sir, or…"

"No, not at all, but I would…it'll only take a little bit, if you wouldn't mind waiting. I know it's been a long day for you two, but…"

She rises to her feet and crosses her arms behind her back. "Not at all, sir. I'll be happy to wait."

Rye wiggles out of his father's grasp to slide down his body and cross the couple of feet between the two adults and throw his arms around Katniss's waist. She haltingly returns the embrace with a tiny smile as she glances down at him. "'Night Katniss! Next time you aren't allowed to cheat, though," the boy scolds.

"I promise, Rye. Sweet dreams."

The boy takes Peeta's proffered hand and leads the way to his bedroom. Without being prompted, he pulls on a pair of mismatched pajamas, which earns him a slight chuckle from his father.

"Hovercrafts _and_ horses, huh?" Peeta shakes his head adoringly as he takes in Rye's hodge-podge outfit.

"They're the most comfy!" Rye squeaks defensively as he settles down under the covers, his stuffed cat already firmly tucked under his arm. They share a long, sweet silence before Peeta sighs, preparing to open his mouth to ask his son what story he might like, when the little one beats him to the punch.

"Daddy, why do you hafta go back to work after I go to sleep?" The boy fiddles with the blue ribbon that serves as a collar for his stuffie as he regards the deep lines on his father's face.

Peeta sighs heavily before responding. "You know my big speech I have to give on Wednesday night?"

"The one Auntie Delly is coming back from Twelve for? Yep, I remember!"

"That's the one. Well, I've been talking it through with Mr. Haymitch, Mr. Finnick, and Mr. Beetee all day long while you've been with Katniss, and…well, it's tricky to explain. But I need lots more practice before Wednesday night comes."

The boy seems to digest this information easily enough before shrugging his shoulders. "You're gonna do good, Daddy. I know it. And me and Katniss and Auntie Delly will be in the very front row to cheer you on."

The smile that illuminates Peeta's face is a brilliant one, and only something from the mouth of his son could put there. "I'm glad you think so, Duckie. I…well, I'm not so sure about it, I suppose."

Rye sighs and shakes his head at his father, as if he's having to explain an incredibly basic concept to the man who helped create him. "But you always tell Auntie Delly that as long as the country believes in good things happening, good things will start to happen, right?"

"Yes, I think I say something like that sometimes."

"So…you just gotta think good things about your speech, and it'll go real good. That's what I think, anyway."

For a fraction of a second, Rye sounds _just_ like his mother. It makes Peeta simultaneously wistful and incredibly, inexplicably proud.

"How'd you get so smart there, Duckie?" Peeta asks him as he brushes a stray curl off the child's forehead. Rye giggles in response.

"I dunno. Probably from Mamaaa…" he says, the final word punctuated with a long, loud yawn. His father grins down at him as if to challenge him about 'not being tired,' but the boy seems to relent all on his own. "Don't stay up too late, Daddy. You gots a lot of work to do in the morning."

"I always do. Mr. Cato and Mr. Marvel are by the door, and they'll check in on you until I get home, alright?"

Peeta leans forward and presses his lips just under the coif of curls that lays against his Rye's forehead. The boy beams at him and pats his stubbly, unshaven cheeks with his two little hands.

"Love you, Daddy," the boy says as Peeta snaps out the light next to him.

"Love you too, Ry-Ry."

After one final peck to the boy's temple, Peeta secures the bedroom door behind him as he heads back into the sitting room. His nerves almost get the better of him when he finds Katniss studying the smattering of framed photos adorning the mantle. She appears to be lingering on one of Rye's very first birthday—his hair was still short enough to show a prominent cowlick behind his left ear and his face was smothered in chocolate-raspberry frosting from the cupcake Ezekiel had made him—that happens to be one of Peeta's very favorites. He clears his throat to tell her so, but just that noise seems to almost startle her out of her skin. It surprises Peeta that he could possibly sneak up on her—Delly always teases him about how heavy his footfalls are.

"Thanks for, erm, waiting, Katniss," Peeta says. _Damn it. Since when does he stutter around her?_

"Of course, Mr. President. What was it you wanted to discuss?"

Peeta wets his lips quickly and tries to remember why on earth he'd asked her to stay in the first place. Since the tense moment between them at the cemetery in Twelve, they've not been alone together once, and it's not like he has all the time in the world to prepare what he's wanted to say. Still, he'd think better of himself than to just look at her and draw a complete blank. It doesn't escape her notice, and her eyes flit nervously around the room until they settle on the rich yellow and green landscape painting hung just above the mantle.

"I've been admiring the, um, painting above the hearth, sir," Katniss say. "It's quite lovely. It's not…well, it's quite unlike anything I've ever seen."

Peeta could almost laugh at the brilliant way her nervousness has led him so seamlessly into one of the few topics he knows he can always speak of with complete confidence. He glances up at the painting and nods his head.

"It's called _The Oxbow_. It's quite ancient at this point—Haymitch has something of a fascination with the relics of pre-Panem. He called it my 'inauguration gift.'"

Katniss nods her head idly, as though most of what he's said has gone straight over her head. A frisson of delight overtakes him with his next thought, and given his current headspace, he's quite surprised at himself that he didn't think of it sooner.

"Actually…I'd like to show you something if you have a moment to spare," he says, regaining some of his usual bravado. For a moment she looks further conflicted, but her nod of assent gives him the extra boost he needs to gesture towards the front door of the residence.

He leads her past the elevator to a stairwell that will lead them down to the sub-basements he's not entirely sure she knows exist—it's not imperative information for her, after all, since it's not space where Rye should ever be. They descend three flights of echoey cement steps before he turns back to her. Her pallor seems to have faded to a ghostly white, and he wonders if confined spaces unnerve her as she resets her jaw and looks at him determinedly.

"It's, um…just one more down," he says, pointing to the final set of steps and the door beyond. He holds it open for her as she sidles through it awkwardly, her eyes flitting back to him as he steps into the dimly lit hallway. He tries to throw her a reassuring smile, but he's not entirely sure he succeeds with that, either.

The final door requires his handprint to open, and it beeps loudly as it unlatches. As soon as they enter, the smell of chemicals and paints wafts past their noses like a cloud; he likes the smell, though she looks vaguely nauseated.

"When we took over the mansion after my inauguration, we sort of stumbled upon this room and—well, it's become one of my favorites," he says, gesturing to the wide expanse of the deceptively large room. Scads and scads of framed paintings are hung from floor to ceiling, all done in largely the same style as _The Oxbow_. He wonders how much attention she might have paid to the main floor entrance through the garden, the very hallway he knows houses the majority of these styled-paintings that have already been preserved and repaired. The ones here are flawed and their mattings are frayed—Cinna and Portia can only work so fast to restore them to their former, pre-Dark Days glory.

"It's, erm…it's extraordinary, sir," Katniss says quietly, walking slowly around the gallery and studying each painting in turn. Her face softens to less of the scowl he's used to seeing there, and Peeta feels his heart do something odd within his chest. He can practically hear Madge in his ear, teasing him mercilessly; he's completely unable to tear his eyes away from Katniss. "Where, um…where did they all come from?"

"As best as we can tell, they are all pre-Panem, so some of these are pushing 500 years old. Hence, the poor lighting in here until they can be preserved. We're not sure why the Snow administration saved them all, only to dump them in this room, but…" He trails off when her eyes seem to find his very favorite, which is also the one Cinna and Portia are currently working on restoring. It rests on an easel behind a small counter full of tools, and she crosses the room quite deliberately to get a better view. He feels himself smile in a giddy way as he strides over as well.

"This one is _Washington Crossing the Delaware_," he explains, joyfully finding her a captive audience. "Haymitch's research seems to indicate that he was a great general of the war that settled one of the pre-Panem nations, and was later elected their very first president. It's…well, it's my favorite."

"I can see why," she murmurs in a wise sort of way that causes him to do a double take. She seems to sense it, and tugs on the end of her braid firmly before gnawing on the bow of her top lip. "It's…well, it seems like something that would appeal to someone who's trying to clean up an entire country. The way the men are trying to move through the ice, but he's so stoic—" Her cheeks suddenly color furiously and she shakes her head. "Forgive me. I'm sure I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm saying. I know nothing about art."

"No, please…go on…" he presses, a bemused grin on his face as he drinks in the ruddy shade of her's.

"You…it's just you were handed the arduous task of cleaning up after Snow. It would appear this fellow has the same sort of demands imposed upon him, but he's—he's quite proud. He seems like the sort of man who knows he'll succeed no matter what sort of challenges he's given. It's probably too bold of me to say so, but that seems a bit like you."

Peeta knows he's staring at her when suddenly her hands fly behind her back once again and her gaze drops to the floor. She clears her throat and seems to shake her head almost imperceptibly before continuing in a hushed stammer. "I hope I haven't insulted you, sir. It wasn't my place…"

"No!" he interrupts as he unconsciously takes a step towards her. "No, it was…it's quite the compliment, Katniss. Truly. I…thank you."

He wishes more than anything she'd look up at him, return his gaze for even a second, but her shyness and insecurity keep her eyes locked on the floor. He looks down in defeat; he's about to divert his attention back to the painting when his eyes fixate on one of the buttons of her blouse that appears to have come undone. He swallows hard when the ever so slight gap in the fabric reveals just a hint of silk and lace of whatever it is she's wearing underneath the perfectly tailored garment. He knows in the back of his head that he should be looking away, changing the subject to whatever it was he was going to ask her before he'd caught her looking at that damn painting above the mantle—instead, the urge to step further towards her overtakes him, and he's powerless against it.

"Katniss…" he says in a low, husky voice, as though he's trying to coax a kitten out from a hiding spot, "do you ever suppose you'd be able to be in the same room as me, and not think of me as the President, and as yourself as my son's guard?"

His question causes a hitch of startled breath to catch in her throat, but her grey eyes finally meet his own. The color has once more drained from her face, and the skin immediately above her top lip is chewed pink and lightly chapped. "It's not a matter of what room or even what District we're in, sir," she says just as quietly. "You _are_ the President. And I _am_ your son's guard."

"I wasn't always," he replies, trying not to feel utterly defeated.

"No. I suppose you weren't."

"And you never know…if the election in two years doesn't run in my favor, I might not be for much longer…"

"I'm sure it will, sir."

As if on cue, they each wet their lips with their tongues and suck in a shallow, nervous breath. She seems utterly frozen in place, but every fiber of Peeta's being is urging him closer. Like in the graveyard a few weeks prior, his hands move of their own volition and his knuckles barely graze her cheek near the wisps of her hair that couldn't possibly fit into her tightly plaited braid. She doesn't shudder or move away—in fact, unless he's insane, her head tilts the tiniest bit against his hand. A fire blazes hot in his belly as he tiptoes forward just enough to bridge the small space between them so he can—

"A-_hem_. Mr. President?"

Peeta jerks backwards with a start and whirls around towards the door. Finnick Odair's silhouette is barely visible in the dim light, but he knows his friend's voice anywhere. As the man's face comes into focus, he can at least see that he has the tact to look somewhat contrite.

"My apologies, sir, but the residence guards pointed me this way—it's nearly 10 pm, sir. And Haymitch has called Prime Minister Boggs over. He's waiting for you in the Aula. Good evening, Agent Everdeen."

Katniss's eyes are on the floor once again, and Peeta can see the tinge of red at the very tops of her ears. He could seriously murder Finnick and his piss-poor timing.

"Of course, Finn. I'll be just a moment."

He casts a glance at Katniss as soon as Finnick has slipped away, only to find her buttoning her uniform jacket over the undone button of her blouse before linking her arms behind her back defensively. Her posture, ramrod straight, belies that they almost just made a terrible mistake.

"Sir, my profound apologies, but it's gotten late and Rye, as you know, has to be at school early tomorrow morning. If you'd be so kind as to—"

"Katniss, I'm so sorry, I don't know what…"

"It's quite alright. But I really think it's best if I…"

"Yes, of course. Have a good evening, Katniss," Peeta says defeatedly. In a flash, she's turned on her heel and bolted from the room, leaving only the faintest trace of her perfume in his nostrils to remind him she was ever there in the first place.

* * *

He stamps into the Aula with no regard to treading lightly. If anything, the almost-whatever-it-was with Katniss has only exacerbated his frustration. The very last thing he's looking forward to is more of Haymitch's snarky remarks about his Townie accent and Beetee's complaints of him not being impassioned enough for the speech. His deep-set scowl fades considerably when he gazes about the room and spots only the Prime Minister standing in front of the blazing fireplace.

"Good evening, Mr. President," Leonid Boggs says with a respectful nod in Peeta's direction. "I hope you don't mind that I stopped by so late in the evening."

"Not at all, Mr. Prime Minister. I'm sure Haymitch, Finnick, and Beetee will be back with us momentarily…can I get you something to—"

"Actually, I…well, I hope you don't mind, but I asked them to step out. They're your staff, of course, you're welcome to ask them back, but…"

Peeta wishes he could throw his arms around the man and squeeze him for actually ridding his office of Haymitch Abernathy for even a minute or two.

"Cripes, no. I should come up with a medal to give you for getting Haymitch out of my face for a minute," Peeta says. Leonid laughs warmly and gestures to the sofas in the center of the room. Peeta sinks into one before mirroring the older man's posture, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin held high. He's always, always respected Leonid Boggs, and despite being almost fifteen years the man's junior, he knows the feeling is entirely mutual.

"So what's wrong with the speech, Mr. President? I've never known you to fumble and not command a room, even back when you were the most junior rep on the floor. What's got you rattled?"

Peeta groans. "I wish I could say for certain, but I honestly have no idea. You know Beetee's writing—it's solid. He's perfectly summarized the gains we've earned from Rio, why we're continuing to explore the possibilities of interactions with the rest of the remaining world, the improvement we're already seeing in Eleven, all of it—I'm just not sure I'm used to the idea of having someone else write my speeches."

Leonid nods as if he understands implicitly, and Peeta can't help but feel that if anyone has the chance to, it's this man. "You don't like being handled. I can sympathize. It's the part of the job I hate most as well."

"You've got a bit more experience with it," Peeta laughs. "As far as two-thirds of the country thinks, I'm still the kid trying to fill shoes four sizes too big."

"That may be, sir. But I never would have recommended you put your name forward for the nomination if I hadn't believed you could do it. I'll never regret voting outside my party so long as the Aula is in your hands."

Peeta finds words impossible to come by for a moment—he knows, of course, that Boggs had been one of his most ardent supporters within Parliament when the recall election to find the disgraced Snow's successor had been called last October, but he certainly never imagined that Boggs would actually break party-alliance to help him get elected. The moment passes and Peeta collects himself. The Prime Minister nods his head towards the file folder on the table between them and catches Peeta's eye.

"That the speech?"

"I've been thinking of it more as 'The Albatross,'" Peeta says with a groan.

"Toss it in the fire," Leonid says. Peeta chuckles, but the look the older man gives him is deathly serious.

"You're an orator, Peeta. Best I can tell you have been since birth—why let a little thing like being the President stand in the way of that? You remember more or less what it says, I presume?"

"I'd imagine. Been over it enough damn times to get more than my fill of it."

"Talk from memory. But speak from your heart. Remind me why I voted for you, and you'll remind the rest in that chamber, too—not to mention rubbing it a bit in the faces of those that were foolish enough not to."

For perhaps the first time that evening that he hasn't spent either in the company of his son or the utterly beguiling guard, Peeta smiles.

* * *

He feels better, lighter even when he finally retires for the night. He takes a moment to check in on a soundly sleeping Rye before sauntering into his own bedroom. He strips himself of his rumpled clothes before running the hot water in the en suite shower. He's able to steal a glance at himself in the mirror before the steam from the stall fogs over the glass, and can't help but shake his head at his reflection. Despite feeling less desperate and overwhelmed from the obligations of the day and coming week, he still looks haggard and worn-down. Barely a year as President and already he feels infinitely older than 32—and certainly more tired than he ever has been in his life. He wryly wonders if that's part of the reason Katniss seems so nervous around him all the time, but thinking of her and that ridiculous stolen moment in the art room magnifies his own sense of shame. He knows he'll need to apologize profusely if he ever wants to be in the same room as her again.

He steps under the spray, the needle-like rivulets massaging his aching shoulders before he presses the button to add in soap. As much as he tries to keep thoughts of her at bay, the moment seems so imprinted on his conscious that he can't quite shake it. Before he even realizes what's happening, the memory of the small gap in her shirt, exposing just the smallest hint of her bra underneath her uniform is enough to make his cock begin to swell.

"Oh, for the love of…" he swears at himself, running his fingers through his hair under the soapy water. He ignores the erection until he changes the dial again, this time to a soap a bit more gentle for his skin, and rubs circles against his arms, pecs, stomach—until finally he can rub his skin raw no further without touching his member.

"Fuck," he says when his hand closes around the shaft, the slick soap providing exactly the right amount of friction for the task. He runs his thumb over the engorged tip, already finding it weeping with the anticipation of an impending orgasm. His fist tightens as he begins to pump, slowly at first while he conjures up the appropriate images in his head to help him finish the job.

They come like scenes projected on a television screen—her eyelashes tangling together as she casts her gaze at the floor. The quicksilver hue of her irises as they studied the paintings in the dim light of the art room. Her teeth worrying her top lip. The wispy soft feel of her hair against his knuckles. The light honeysuckle scent of her perfume. And of course, the gap in her blouse…

"Oh, _fuck_!" Peeta cries as his hips jerk and a stream of semen hits the tile wall when he comes. He switches the water cycle back to clear, dropping the temperature a few degrees to cool his fevered skin as he pants through his recovery. His toes slowly uncurl and his breath evens out, but he can't deny that feeling the rush of an orgasm after so long, being so engrossed in his fantasy of a woman so desirable is luscious…even if it's tremendously inappropriate. It strikes him that this moment is yet another moment he ought to apologize to her for—if he's ever actually able to face her again.

He drops his flaccid member and rinses his hands before rubbing them over his face. "Never again," he promises himself. "Never, never again."

He wipes the wall down and steps out of the shower. He pulls on his pajamas and crawls under the covers. He's asleep before he can even turn out the light next to him; he doesn't stir once until Effie's wake up call trills in his ear the next morning.

He's completely forgotten what it is to have a night of restful, peaceful sleep.

* * *

When Katniss returns to her simple, middle floor dwelling a few streets down from the mansion, she quickly bolts the door behind her and presses her back against it. After checking out with the remaining Tribs, she'd nearly run the entire stretch home, so desperate was she to put as much distance between that sub-basement room—and truth be told, her feelings—as possible.

Because what she'd felt the second the President's hand grazed the side of her face and the incredibly close proximity of his mouth to hers was nothing short of thrilling, if not completely terrifying. Not since that moment in District Twelve, when their eyes had locked onto one another's for just a moment longer than either were entirely comfortable with, has Katniss felt _this_ before. Not intentionally. Not this abundantly.

She'd been incredibly grateful for the dim light of the art room as soon as she'd caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror near the Trib locker room. Her eyes were dilated. Her breath came in short, raspy gasps. And when she studied her reflection long and hard enough, she noticed the popped shirt button directly in between her breasts. The buttons of her blazer had mostly masked it, but still, there it was, plain as day. And in front of _him_, no less.

Had he seen? If he had, he didn't stare. He didn't point it out, possibly because he knew it would make her flush and stammer. And she did enough of that around President Peeta Mellark.

_Oh, cripes_, she thinks. _Why him? Why am I like this around him?_

Her body had the same visceral reaction to that lingering gaze in Twelve, despite nothing seemingly sexual about it. There shouldn't be _anything_ sexual about the way she looks at the leader of the nation, the father of the child she's sworn an oath to protect from harm. And yet her panties are uncomfortably, unabashedly soaked.

She steps out of her shoes, socks, trousers, and blazer quickly, hanging them over a chair to keep them from wrinkling. She pauses over the still-gapped front of her shirt as she undoes the rest of the buttons, her cheeks flushing furiously over the notion that President Mellark might have seen even a hint of her undergarments. As she shrugs the shirt off her shoulders, she catches a side-long glance at herself in the mirror.

There's nothing particularly pretty about her. She's plain looking at best, her hair her finest feature, and it's always pulled back away from her face, a requirement from her days as a rookie Peacekeeper. She pulls the elastic from the end of her braid and shakes it out so it falls kinked around her face. She twines her fingers in the tresses just above her ears and presses her fingertips against her skull. The massaging motion feels blissful—and yet she's sure it'd feel even better if the pressure was being applied by another pair of hands.

"Stop it, Katniss!" she snaps at herself. She moves quickly into the bathroom, where she brushes her teeth and relieves herself before padding back into the bedroom to change into a fresh pair of panties before pulling back the blankets on her bed. She snaps out the light, sure that sleep will claim her quickly from the expeditious jaunt home.

It doesn't.

She tosses and turns, trying to shake the feeling of her skin pebbling up every time she remembers the ever-so-brief brush of the President's fingers. She remembers it so implicitly because waves of gooseflesh prickle her skin every time she tries to push the image from her mind; it becomes harder and harder, so she finally tries to think of something, _anything_ else. That's when the button comes back to her, and she feels her cheeks burn.

She's not sure if she's embarrassed because of what he might have seen…or excited because she secretly hopes that perhaps he _did_ see.

She knows it's wrong, so very wrong, but her hand trails down her abdomen slowly, her thumb running along the waistband of the simple cotton underwear before hooking under the hem so she can inch her hand inside. Her fingertips barely graze the small thatch of curls that covers her sex before her middle finger parts her folds, testing to see how much, if at all, the memories have continued to effect her.

She isn't surprised to find that she is dripping once again. She pulls her hand out of her panties and holds it up to her face. Even in the scant stream of moonlight coming in from her bedroom window, she can see her fingertip coated in her own arousal. The mere notion causes a pained moan to escape her throat, a mewl so pathetic and desperate that it only ceases when she shoves her hand back inside her underwear and presses two digits roughly down on the pulsing nub of her clitoris.

"Ohh!" she yelps as soon as her fingertips begin to circle the mound tightly. She feels her breath hitch in her throat, her lungs struggling to keep up with the way she's already panting and gasping for air. It doesn't take but a minute, perhaps two, of picturing the cerulean eyes of the President staring her down before her toes curl and every muscle of her body seizes up, her orgasm ripping through her like a hot knife in a pat of butter. She screams her release, her hand cupping her sex limply as the bundle of nerves pounds with the rapid beat of her heart.

She wrenches her eyes open and takes a steady breath. _This was wrong_, she thinks. This was wrong in so many ways that she can barely believe she just did it.

"Never again. Never again, Katniss," she whispers to herself. And yet, somehow, she can't seem to remove her hand from her panties. When she closes her eyes, all she sees are those eyes staring back at her, a bemused smile between dimpled cheeks, and ten talented, lithe fingers that she'd give _anything_ to have be touching her right now.

Her fingers trail through her folds again, the tip of her index finger circling her narrow opening, completely coating her fingertips in the juices rushing from her core before she pushes her index and middle fingers inside. The intrusion is quick but immensely pleasurable, particularly when she curls her fingers towards the front of her pelvis.

She keens as she imagines broader fingers connected to large palms and sturdy, muscular arms pumping in and out of her as she fucks herself, the most inappropriate name crossing her lips every time her hips buck.

"Peeta…Peeta…_Peeta_!" she cries.

She wants to stop after the second orgasm, and she does for a few minutes. But the need takes her over again. And again. And again.

_Just one night of this_, she swears. _Just one night, and then never again._

* * *

Katniss doesn't run into the President once over the next three days. Rye's usual after-school visit with him in the Aula gets canceled Monday and Tuesday so he can work through the day in hopes of coming home early, and the First Lady has finally returned from her extended stay with their family in Twelve after the Festival of Lights District tour. Katniss is en route to the mansion Wednesday morning when Gale catches her on communicuff to inform her that Rye had come down with the flu overnight and won't be attending school.

Instead, Katniss spends the day in the Tribute Training Center, practicing sharpshooting with Thom until Johanna Mason complains all-too-loudly about the lack of a decent sparing partner. Despite not being particularly big, Katniss does pride herself on quick reflexes and agile moves, so she volunteers. The older woman is able to best her twice before Katniss finally figures out Johanna's signature move and how to use it to her advantage. In their last bout, she's easily able to pin her with her knee pressed against the curve of her neck; as a final flourish, Katniss pulls the fake gun they wear in their holsters for practice and presses the 'trigger' to her opponent's temple. Johanna's laugh is maniacal when Katniss releases her grip and lets her up, and the woman seems to spit fire when she regards Katniss with a simple "That's what I call over-fucking-whelming force." It honestly makes Katniss like Johanna just the tiniest bit more.

"Nice moves there, Catnip," Gale calls out to her. She takes a deep swig of water from a canteen as she saunters over to him, partially expecting him to challenge her to a spar next.

"What can I say, I've learned a thing or two in the last five months," she says wryly. He smirks at her and waves her over to a long bench to take a load off. He fiddles with the buttons of his communicuff for a moment before addressing her again.

"It probably shouldn't surprise you, but Little D—_Rye_ won't be attending the State of Panem address with the President this evening. According to the residence guards, the First Lady has been going a little crazy all day fussing over him. Almost called in a doctor but settled on some medicine out of our infirmary to keep his fever in check and his vomiting spells to a minimum."

Katniss nods and wipes a bit of sweat from her brow with a small towel. "Understood. Do I have a different assignment for the evening?"

Gale rubs the back of his neck and sighs. "Actually—you're free to say no to this, but Abernathy doesn't want President Mellark standing up in front of Parliament without the First Lady in attendance. Not sure why it matters to him so much, but she's agreed to leave the boy...so he'll need some company for the evening."

Katniss nods without considering the implications whatsoever. Rye is her mark—it doesn't matter where he is, he's always her mark. "No problem whatsoever."

"The President didn't want me to ask you at first…something about you not being…"

"Rye's nanny, yeah, I know. He's made that clear. It's fine with me, Gale." Katniss doesn't want to admit the implications of actually missing the little boy after not seeing him all day. She's not entirely sure what that means.

Gale's voice drops a couple of octaves as he leans in towards her and nudges her shoulder. "Catnip…I know he's a charming kid and all, but don't let yourself get too attached or anything. You never know what might happen in positions like ours, and it's better to keep your relationship with your mark purely professional. We've had agents get in some trouble over this already—I don't want to see you be the next one."

Katniss wonders who he could mean as she considers his words; she shakes her head fervently and gets back up to return to the sharpshooting range, intent on trying out one of the composite bows and arrows as a change of pace from the regular rifle or pistol she's grown accustomed to in the exercises. "I'm keeping my distance, Gale. Don't worry about me."

He doesn't look convinced at all, likely because after so many years he knows exactly how bad of a liar she is—but he doesn't press the issue.

"It's all I ask, Catnip. The President and the First Lady are due to leave at 1800 for Parliament…can you be in the residence by then?"

She nods quickly as she runs her hands reverently along the smooth wood of the bow and picks it up to test for weight and draw-resistance. It seems like it was perfectly crafted just for her.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Gale says, amusement in his voice as he turns to leave. She's got an arrow nocked in place when she finally turns her head to see him disappear through one of the large double doors. She shrugs and focuses her eyes on the target before drawing back and letting the arrow fly.

It lands with a solid thunk in the very center of the black ink outline and she smiles to herself. She isn't proud of much, but this—this she's very, very proud of.

* * *

She steps through the door of the residence the same way she always does in the morning to pick Rye up for school, but the air of the place is decidedly off. Delly Cartwright bustles past her without even noticing her, her hair half done up and mascara smudged under her eye as she calls out to no one in particular about a missing earring. The sound of the television blares from the sitting room and she follows it to find a very pale Rye curled up on the sofa with a puffy blanket she doesn't recognize. He greets her with a wave and a smile, but doesn't make his usual running leap across the room to hug her around her waist.

"Still feeling poorly?" she asks him as she runs her hand gently over the top of his head. His forehead burns hot under his matted, damp curls, and he gives a pathetic little cough in reply.

"Auntie Delly isn't happy 'cause I…erm, threw up in my bed, only she doesn't have time to put new ones back on. That's why I'm out here," the boy says bashfully, curling deeper under the duvet. Katniss shrugs.

"It happens when we get sick sometimes. I'm sure she just wants you to feel better," Katniss replies conspiratorially. She's not entirely comfortable around sick people either, but she feels like Rye ought to be the exception, much the way Prim always was. She reminds herself all the same to hunt down soap flecks from the laundry room to put in the bottom of the little bucket near his head to absorb the smell in case he has to use it later.

"You don't gotta be here tonight if you don't wanna, Katniss. Auntie Delly said she could call someone else to—"

"I was gonna have to be with you tonight one way or another. At least this way we can play Sticks or something when your father's speech gets boring…how does that sound?"

"That sounds like a ringing endorsement to me," a decidedly different male voice says out of nowhere, chilling Katniss to the core and forcing her quickly to her feet. It would be just her luck that _he'd_ walk in right at that moment. Despite a flush of embarrassment burning hot on her cheeks, the momentary glance at Peeta Mellark's face indicates he's found her backhanded comment almost…amusing?

"Mr. President, that was incredibly rude of me to say, I'm so, so…"

He holds up his hand and leans over the back of the couch to put his own hand on Rye's head. He tuts as he shakes his head. "Still no better than when I came up at lunchtime, huh? And wearing one of my sweaters, I see."

In response, Rye shoves the sleeves of the vastly oversized sweatshirt up his arms. "Auntie Delly got it for me after I got sick on my jammies. Sorry, Daddy." The President clicks his tongue as he rounds the couch to pour a bit of water from a pitcher into the brightly colored plastic cup with a lid-and-straw top. He hands it to the boy, who seems loathe to take a drink, but does so to appease his father.

"Don't you worry a bit about it, Duck. You probably would be pretty bored by the speech and all the people I'll have to stay and talk to after it's over. Katniss is right—you'll have more fun here with her. You need to make sure to take all the medicines that Auntie Delly's set out for you, though, okay?"

Rye nods and shrinks back against the side of the couch with the blanket pulled up to his nose. Katniss sees the conflicted look of a parent who only wants to comfort his child etched on the President's face (a look she'd seen more than once on her own parents' faces in regards to an ill Prim), but the fine cut and fit of his obviously expensive charcoal grey suit looks little like the sort of thing that can be easily spot-cleaned in case the boy has some sort of projectile vomiting fit. Her own suit, however, is far less important, and certainly won't be seen on television that evening. She insinuates herself on the couch next to the little boy and holds an arm out to him, not thinking twice when he nestles against her side.

The look on the President's face is largely indecipherable to her, but she reads it as affectionate warmth. She's surprised how comfortable that makes her, despite still feeling perpetually on edge around him—particularly in light of how she's been coaxing herself to sleep the last several nights.

"I appreciate you staying with him tonight, Katniss. I'm quite sure you'd rather not but—"

"It's no problem whatsoever, Mr. President." Her voice is more curt than she intends, and she wishes she could take the words back as soon as they're out of her mouth.

The President clears his throat and nods at her quickly before turning back to his son and tilting his chin up so their eyes meet. "You need to get lots of sleep tonight, Ry-Ry. It'll help you feel better faster."

"I slept almost all day today," Rye whines, but his father cuts him off with a shake of his head.

"Still. If you wanna watch my speech on TV, that's okay, but you need to go to bed right after, alright? No grousing to Katniss about it."

Rye huffs and nods. "Okay, Daddy. I will. But if you get to come straight home after, can you at least come in and say goodnight?"

"Always," the President says as he leans forward and presses his lips to his son's feverish skin. He ducks his head a little lower and murmurs something into the boy's ear that seems to perk him right up. Peeta's hand burrows into his pocket and drops a familiar little trinket into Rye's cupped ones. The boy crawls out of his duvet nest and works the tiny clasp of the golden mockingjay pin loose so he can fasten it to the lapel of his father's grey suit. It hangs just off center of the material, but the President makes no move to correct it.

"To protect you," Katniss hears Rye whisper.

"For good luck," the President replies, enveloping his child in his arms before Thom and Delly whisk him out the front door.

* * *

All 308 Parliamentary delegates, including the Prime Minister himself, have clambered to their feet in varying degrees of enthusiasm on the television when Katniss feels Rye stir beside her. The boy had dozed through the entire speech, as much as he'd tried to pretend he was awake and hanging on every word his father said on-screen, but he'd snorted out just enough muffled little snores to betray himself. Katniss leans forward to snap the television off with the tiny touch remote before testing the boy's forehead against the back of her hand. He feels slightly cooler and hasn't had a vomiting spell all evening, but she still supposes the best thing for him is a lot of rest. She smiles at him as his hetero-chromic eyes find her grey ones, and nods towards the hallway.

"What do you think? Ready for bed?" she asks him, her voice just barely above a whisper.

"I'm not tired anymore. And I wanna see my daddy when he gets home," the little boy says between large, unconvincing belly yawns.

"I'll tell you what—if you'll eat a couple of these crackers, I'll call Gale on my communicuff and ask him what time they'll all be back. If it's under an hour, you can stay awake to greet him. If it's more, you need to go to sleep."

The child sighs, but reaches forward and begins to nibble the corner of one of the crackers that his aunt had laid out for him while Katniss stands up and stretches her back before fiddling with the tiny buttons of the device on her wrist. She has to bark into the thing three times before a wisp of static buzzes back in response.

"Gale here. Is everything alright, Katniss?" the man trills to her. She can hear the hubbub of the Parliament auditorium in the background, so she makes a point to speak clearly in reply.

"Little Duck has asked me to ask you when Mockingjay might be expected back at the residence. Do you have an ETA?"

"Sorry, no. He'll be speaking with some of the delegates in his party during a brief reception, and then he and Boggs will no doubt walk the rope-line out front."

"Protocol had been that they'd skip it," Katniss begins, but a sneeze from behind her gives her the answer to that quandary. The President _would_ skip it if his son was present, but without him, he's a little freer to glad-handle the assembled crowd. She wonders if Rye will be able to put two-and-two together that his father would have been home sooner had he not fallen ill, but she decides it's for the best to keep that from him as long as she can.

"Mockingjay's schedule is ever-changing, Katniss. Sorry, can't give you an ETA until we have him in the car for the ride back."

"Understood. Thank you, Gale. Katniss out."

When she turns around, she sees the little boy's face contorted in displeasure. She shrugs to verify the verdict and watches him cross his arms and huff. "But I'm not sleepy," he says with a scowl.

"I think we both heard your father very clearly, Rye. Your fever is still bad, so you need to go to sleep."

He sticks his bottom lip out in a pout and it's everything Katniss can do to not tug on it teasingly the way she did once upon a time to her little sister. She shakes herself out of the impulse and surveys the medicines laid out for him on the coffee table. One catches her eye in particular, and she knows even before she palms it that it's a tiny bottle of sleep syrup. Her mother had a supply of her own growing up, and she can remember it getting Prim through a few particularly rough nights in the heyday of her illness.

"I'll make you a cup of tea if you think it will help," she says gently as she slips the vial into her pocket.

"I don't like tea," he says, pouting once more.

"Are you hungry at all?"

"Nope."

"Tea or applesauce, those are your choices," she says firmly. The boy sticks out his tongue but concedes to a small bowl of applesauce and turns the television back on as she shuffles into the kitchen. She only adds a drop or two, knowing that'll likely be all he'll really need, and stirs it in well so he doesn't notice it—much.

He's opening his mouth to complain about the cloying sweetness of the stuff as he eats it when his eyelids suddenly appear to grow far too heavy for his face and the bowl nearly tumbles to the floor. She's able to catch it just in time to avoid a mess and gathers the little slumping body in her arms and carts him off down the hallway.

"You tricked me," Rye slurs as nudges his bedroom door open with her hip.

"I did. Because you need to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

She scowls as she looks at his unmade bed, vaguely remembering what he'd said earlier about the First Lady running out of time to remake it. She hoists him further up in her arms before grabbing the stuffed cat toy he sleeps with from his bedside table. She guesses correctly that the elaborate double doors at the end of the hall lead into the President's bedroom—it feels strange entering, but she has to put him down _somewhere_.

She can tell Rye is no stranger to nestling into his father's bed by the way he cozies up to the pillow on the far right side after she's pulled the sheets back for him to crawl in between. She surmises that the duvet he's been bundled up in all night long has also come from this bed, and she tries her best to remake it to some semblance of normalcy despite the boy's sleepy form tucked underneath. She perches on the side and smiles down at him. The look he gives her in return is pathetic at best, but actually makes her smile just the tiniest bit wider. Rye's cherubic grin and the sweet smell of childhood (grass, applesauce, and bubble bath) that always lingers on his skin seem to intermix suddenly with another scent decidedly more pungent and masculine (all lemon and sandalwood)—Katniss recognizes it immediately as that of the President's cologne—sending her head spinning for a moment.

_What sort of effect do these Mellark men have on her?_

"My auntie tells me stories to help me sleep," Rye murmurs as he rubs his eyes, snapping her out of her reverie.

"Oh…I don't know many stories…" Katniss stammers.

"My daddy sings. You could sing, if you want," he presses.

Katniss sighs. "You're gonna fall right to sleep, Rye. I can stay with you until you…"

"Please," the boy whines, and Katniss feels her defenses fade away.

"What, um…what sort of songs does he sing?"

"There's one about a mockingjay and a hunter in the forest…"

Katniss combs her memories of the songs her father taught her, songs he sang to her as a child when she was laying in bed looking up at him like this little boy is now; though she can hear the melody of the lamenting, tragic song, her brain is completely unable to put the words together.

"I'm sorry, Rye, I don't know that one. But I'll still stay with you, okay?"

The boy murmurs something mostly unintelligible that makes Katniss freeze in place. Surely there's no way, none whatsoever, even in his sickly state with the tendrils of the powerful sleep syrup making him woozy that the word '_Mama_' crept past his lips in any context other than him thinking back to the mother he never knew. Still, she pushes his curls out of his eyes and tucks the blanket up under his chin as she hums what parts of the melody she _can_ remember as sleep grabs him and pulls him under.

What Katniss doesn't know, of course, is that while the boy grumbles and snores his way through the first of many dreams, his father shakes hand after hand, waving and saluting the cheering crowd outside the Parliament House with the Prime Minister directly behind him. Every so often, the two leaders of the country pause and smile for the flash of a camera before shaking yet another stranger's hand, all the while completely unaware of the tense glances the assembled group of Tributes are casting at one another. If Katniss and Rye were still in the sitting room, arguing over applesauce and tea and the stomach medicine so foul tasting it made the boy cry when he'd taken his dose earlier, they'd have seen a bizarre hush fall over the crowd in the split second prior to Johanna Mason whipping around and locking eyes on the glint of steel in one of the windows of the building directly across the street. And they most certainly would have heard her terrified scream of "_Gun_!" immediately before the sound of bullets pierced the night.

* * *

**A/N: ...don't hate me too much, okay?  
**

**The title of this chapter comes courtesy of Coldplay. The paintings mentioned (_The Oxbow _and _Wa__shington Crossing the Delaware_) are, of course, both very real, very extraordinary works of art hanging currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Please Google them at your leisure if you'd like to see and learn more about them.**

**My enumerable thanks to S., Meggie, and Court (my beta goddesses!), as well as the lovely _misshoneywell_ for their encouragement on this chapter. Specific thanks to Jessa for the incredible PiP prompt that helped me form the middle scene in this chapter...if you recognized it as my Gluttony outtake from the most recent PiP round on Tumblr, thanks for reading it in both its original form and this new one! **

**I'll do my level best to not keep you all hanging on this cliff for too long! Thank you all kindly for the reviews and PMs...I so love hearing from you all, and it's unbelievably helpful to have so much encouragement when I get stuck here and there while writing this story, so please keep them coming if you'd be so kind. I'm _baronesskika_ on Tumblr if you'd like to chat with me there as well.**

**Happy reading and fangirl/boying over the final CF trailer!**


	9. Kill Monsters in the Rain

**(This chapter is dedicated with lots of love to my Scorpio sisters over on Tumblr - _mathgirl24, famousfremus_, and _swishywillow_. Happy belated birthdays, my darlings!)**

* * *

Peacekeeper motorcycles flank the limousine on all sides, their sirens screaming against the wind. Inside the limo, Peeta's head pounds as he listens to Thresh barking orders into the communicuff on his wrist. The sounds of bullets firing ring in his ears in conjunction with the wail of the sirens; he silently prays that both will stop, and he'll be bathed instead in glorious, peaceful silence. He's so lost in his thoughts and dreams of silence he doesn't hear Thresh call his name until the man shakes his shoulders.

"Mr. President? Mr. President!" Thresh commands.

Peeta blinks wildly as a surge of pain shoots down his right arm, helping to snap him out of the numbness of it all. He wonders why his shoulder hurts so atrociously until his brain flits back to being tackled to the ground by Gale; it must have jammed against the concrete. For now, it's something to keep him grounded, something to remind him he's still breathing. "Who's dead back there?" he asks Thresh quickly. "Who took hits? Where are Gale and Thom?"

"There aren't any reports yet on who might be injured, sir. We'll have more reliable information in a few minutes," Thresh responds.

"Why aren't Gale and Thom with us? Where are they?"

Thresh winces. "Gale…Gale was hit, Mr. President. Thom stayed with him to administer first aid until the medic corps arrive."

Peeta feels every ounce of air leave his lungs. "Castor! Turn around, I need to see what's going on back there!" he gasps.

"Mr. President, no, that isn't an option," Thresh says.

"I don't give a damn! We're going back and making sure he gets to the hospital!" Peeta snaps back.

"I will follow protocol to the letter in this situation, Mr. President, and protocol dictates I get you to the mansion as soon as possible. This isn't a discussion we are having or a decision you can override, sir, this is for your own safety. As soon as we're inside the mansion, I'll get you all the information you want." His voice is steady, unwavering. His deep brown eyes stare Peeta down, practically begging for a challenge so he can reiterate his point. Peeta knows it's no use and thunks his head against the seat behind him in exasperation.

"I need to know who might be dead back there, Thresh. Please," he pleads, his voice a strangled moan. The guard looks almost apologetic at having to deny Peeta's request again when his communicuff crackles to life.

"Johanna to Thresh! Johanna to Thresh, come in!"

"Thresh here, go ahead, Jo," Thresh says quickly.

"We got 'em. All three of the bastards. Forty-seven seconds from the first shot," Johanna's voice trills. "Abernathy is in a car bound for the mansion, and the medic corps just arrived."

"Who_'s_ wounded?!" Peeta cries, grasping Thresh's wrist. "What happened to Gale?"

"Mr. President?" Johanna stutters on the other end.

"Answer him, Jo," Thresh says calmly.

The other end is silent for a minute. "Sir, what did you see so I don't tell you what you already know?"

"All I saw was the ground coming toward my face as Gale took me down, then the inside of this car. Fucking hell, Johanna, I need to know which of my people are dead back there! Delly? Boggs? Finnick? Beetee?"

"The First Lady is secure, sir. She's in the same car as Abernathy, I saw her myself. Odair and Watts are still on the scene, but neither are injured," Johanna responds.

Peeta finds he can breathe again—for a moment anyway.

"Boggs? Where's Boggs? The same car?"

The line is silent again.

"Johanna, come in," Thresh orders.

"Hold, please," Johanna's voice shakes as the device crackles and seems to die. Peeta tries to suck air in through his nose, but it's useless. He _knows_. In this moment, he knows exactly what happened.

"Mr. President?" Johanna's voice comes again with a burst of static.

"He's here, Jo. Answer him," Thresh says.

"We had to wait until the medic corps arrived to make the call, sir, but they just confirmed what we already knew. I—I'm very sorry to be the bearer of this news, Mr. President, but Prime Minister Boggs sustained two shots, one to the lower spine and one to the back of the head. He—he died immediately, sir. The Prime Minister is dead."

Peeta's body convulses at the news before he pitches forward and empties his stomach on the floorboards of the car. He doesn't hear Thresh bark a final order to Johanna due to the sound of his own retching in his ears, and only barely registers Thresh's hand on the back of his neck to guide him back to a sitting position when he's expelled everything in his stomach. The dim light filtering in through the tinted windows makes the vomit look almost black.

Thresh twists in the seat next to him and looks down at the foul pool at their feet with wide eyes. Suddenly he kneels in front of Peeta and pats down his torso, arms, and finally his legs. When his hand grazes his left calf, Peeta registers a jolt of pain shoot up his leg that makes the pain in his shoulder feel like a paper cut.

"Cripes," Thresh growls before rearing back and calling to the driver over his shoulder, "The President was shot, Castor! Hospital, now!"

Peeta hisses in pain as the guard removes his tie and cinches it around his calf just under his knee. Thresh sets his jaw and nods at him. "You're going to be alright, Mr. President. You're going to be fine."

* * *

A nurse called Emmaline answers the phone in the emergency room. At first all she hears is the dial tone on the other end, then the insistent trill continues. She replaces the receiver for the incorrect phone and answers the navy blue one hanging on the wall instead.

"Medic ops."

"Operative 11 dash 567 here—Mockingjay has been compromised, and we are en route!"

Emmaline looks curiously at the receiver in her hand. "Is this a drill?"

"No!"

"We just had one of these last week, sir, I'd just assume..."

The screeching of sirens pulling up to the emergency room entrance door silences her. Her jaw drops just before the phone falls from her hand. She picks up the PA receiver and barks into it, "Code Orange! We have Code Orange incoming!"

It takes three minutes for the Tributes to clear the waiting area and non-critical rooms. An executive agent positions tertiaries at every door, just in time for the presidential limo to skid to a stop in front of the entrance. A team of doctors and nurses race to the door with a gurney, and a second later, Thresh pulls the President from the back seat.

"I'm fine! Thresh, we need to go back!"

"No sir, Mr. President. Who's the lead of this team?!" he bellows, surveying the medical staff. A familiar woman with chestnut hair steps up.

"Dr. Lindsey, at your service. What happened?"

"Multiple shots were fired at the President and Prime Minister as they walked the rope line after the State of Panem address. The only wounds the President appears to have sustained is a shot to his left calf muscle and possibly a dislocated right shoulder...can't tell you more than that, Doctor. Is the trauma room secure?"

"Yes sir! Mr. President, I'm Dr. Lindsey...I treated your son when he..."

"Thresh stays with me!" Peeta gasps as the nursing staff begins to cut away his clothing. He finally catches sight of his leg and nearly retches once more..

"Of course, sir! If this is the worst of your wounds you're incredibly lucky. We'll place you under anesthesia to reset your shoulder and clean and de-breed the muscle wound and assess for nerve damage. It's a minor surgery, Mr. President, nothing to worry about, I assure you."

"No! No, no surgery! I can't be placed under anesthesia!"

Dr. Lindsey gapes at him. "Sir, it's a minor procedure…"

"_Do not put me under anesthesia!_" Peeta cries.

"Mr. President, Mr. Abernathy and the First Lady are two minutes away. Please, keep calm," Thresh tells him, his voice surprisingly dulcet. Peeta grips the front of Thresh's shirt with his bloodied hand and pulls the man's face towards his own.

"Thresh, please. Please don't let them put me under..."

The guard looks at the doctors and nurses, all of whom are shaking their heads in confusion. He closes his hand around his mark's wrist and nods solemnly. "I've got you Mr. President. You're safe now."

* * *

Katniss closes the door of the master bedroom behind her when residence guards Cato and Marvel burst inside. Her nerves haven't quite adjusted to the pace at which some of the Tribs move, and she's certainly never seen the pair of _them_ move with such urgency before. Marvel's hand whips out at once and slaps at a button on the wall; a moment later, a large solid metal sheet slams down on the multi-paneled picture window at the other end of the hall. She whirls around to face the guards and demand an explanation, but before she can get out a word, Cato shoves her aside to throw the bedroom door open.

"He is _sleeping_!" she hisses as he shines a flashlight on the boy's face. He ignores her as he sweeps the beam around the room before slamming the door closed, not even bothering to be quiet about it.

"Primary check of the residence indicates Little Duck is secure. Secondary sweep in progress," Cato barks into his communicuff and starts down the hallway without another glance at Katniss. Her hand whips out and grasps Marvel by the hem of his sleeve, forcing him to a stop in front of her.

"What the _fuck_ is going on?!" she demands, still refusing to raise her voice above a harsh whisper, lest she wake Rye up unnecessarily. Marvel's lip curls as he yanks his arm from her and nods to her communicuff.

"Set it to frequency Alpha-One-Three. There were multiple shots fired tonight as the President left the State of Panem address. You are to await orders from Agent Courtney before leaving the residence. Mind your mark, Agent Everdeen," the man snarls at her before continuing on, practically breaking down the door to the First Lady's bedroom across the way. Katniss feels her stomach drop, and her mouth goes dry as she fiddles with the dials of her communicuff, the peaceful silence of her evening fading away into static and the sound of multiple voices all speaking on top of one another. It takes her several long minutes to hear a voice she recognizes, then another—none of them, however, belong to Gale.

"Wait!" she calls out as the agents make their way down the hall to exit out the front door. "This is all gibberish, I don't understand—who's Eagle? '_Eagle is down_' means he's dead, but who the hell is Eagle?"

The guards share a look so condescending Katniss would love nothing more than to claw it off their faces with her stubby fingernails. Cato speaks first, rolling his eyes as he does.

"The Prime Minister is Eagle," he sneers. "The Prime Minister is dead."

Katniss feels as though she's been punched in the gut; a scant few moments ago, she was watching the Prime Minister and President clasp hands and raise them triumphantly above their heads. Now one of those men is dead, and all she can think about is the sleeping towhead who wanted so bad to greet his father when he arrived home. She wonders if Rye will ever get the chance to greet his father again. "The…is the President secure or is he…?"

"Listen to the frequency and figure it out for yourself, Everdeen," Marvel says bitterly before the men slam the door behind them.

It takes Katniss a long moment to process everything, but when she finally does, she feels herself sinking down to squatting against the wall outside the President's bedroom, her communicuff pressed firmly to her ear.

On the other side of the door, the little boy she guards sleeps peacefully, blissfully unaware of anything outside of his sleep-syrup induced dreams.

* * *

The guards stationed outside the President's room don't even bother trying to keep Delly Cartwright and Haymitch Abernathy from bursting past them in an attempt to get to the man's bedside.

"Peeta? Peeta!" Delly cries as soon as she sees her brother laid out, hooked up to all manner of machinery. She leans over the rail of the gurney to press her forehead against his and attempts to smile at him through the tears rolling down her cheeks. "You're alright? You're really okay?"

"I'm fine, Dell, just…watch the leg, okay? And my shoulder isn't in great shape either."

"Mr. President?" Haymitch takes in the sight of the man, his pallid and panicked expression, and sets his jaw firmly, steeling himself to be strong and take charge. "What's your prognosis?"

"They want to do surgery, Haymitch. You have to make sure they don't…"

"It's an incredibly simple procedure!" Dr. Lindsey says exasperatedly. "We have to put him under to reset his shoulder and explore the wound. He'll be in a profound amount of pain if we—"

"Surely there are drugs you can ply him with that won't knock him completely unconscious," Haymitch growls, stealing his own glance at the wound. Blood has already seeped through the thick gauze they've dressed the bullet hole with, partially contributing to the sickly shade of the young man's skin.

"We can dope him up with enough morphling to take the edge off, but popping his shoulder back in place without anesthesia…"

Peeta's hand lurches out and grasps Haymitch by the wrist. His blue eyes are almost feral as they stare him down, but his grasp is shaky at best. "I don't have a Prime Minister, Haymitch. What happens if I'm unconscious for an hour and there's no Prime Minister?"

Haymitch immediately knows the man is correct. A line of succession has never been established, a residual effect of Snow's corrupt attempt to wrest as much control away from Parliament and into his own Aula as possible, and they both know it should have been one of the first bits of legislature they passed after taking power—but keeping the country fed had been more pressing, and thus it had fallen through the cracks. Haymitch knows they shouldn't have allowed it to do so, but it's far, far too late now.

"He's right," Haymitch calls over to his shoulder to the doctor. "With the Prime Minister dead, there is no next-in-command to assume the President's powers if he's under anesthesia. You can't put him under."

"So what, he's gonna bleed to death while you call a special session of Parliament to determine the new Prime Minister?!" Delly shrieks. "Haymitch, look at him!"

"Only Peeta has the power to call a Parliamentary session—you think he's in any state to do that? You think any of those delegates who were just shot at are clambering to go back into chambers to hold a head count?" Haymitch snaps back. He and the First Lady have never gotten on, and not even the President laying between them injured is enough for either of them to forget it.

"No surgery," Peeta gasps as a fresh wave of pain crests over him. "Just…hold me down and reset me and whatever else you have to do. I'll have to grin and bear it."

"It will be excruciating, sir," Dr. Lindsey says, stepping into his eyeshot. "You may end up passing out from the pain anyway, even with morphling to take the edge off."

"Well then, work fast, Doctor, and I'll try to keep myself from passing out. I'm not leaving this country leaderless, even for an hour." Peeta's resigned and stoic, even though the word '_dead_' in reference to Leonid Boggs takes his breath away. Any minute now he's sure Haymitch will tell him there was some sort of mistake, and Leonid will breeze through the door and officially accept temporary leadership of the Aula so Peeta can spare himself the massive amount of pain he's about to endure. The moment doesn't come, and it's everything Peeta can do to keep the weight of despair from completely crushing him.

Delly turns green and pushes her head between her knees to try to stop the bile from rising up in her throat. A nurse loops an arm around her and moves to escort her out of the room. She turns back and looks forlornly at her brother just before the door closes between them. "Please don't die, Peet!"

"Check on Rye, Dell, please!" Peeta calls back, knowing full well his last few words were cut off by the closing door.

"She booted in the back of the limo—you know they'll charge you for that, right?" Haymitch says in an effort to distract Peeta from the large hypodermic needle that's about to plunge into the crook of his elbow.

"Yeah, so did I. Be a hell of a smelly ride home…"

The morphling works fast, and Peeta's world begins to turn muted and fuzzy around the edges. He barely makes out the doctors redraping his leg to try to disguise their movements for his own edification, but the dull throb of his leg as his heart continues to pump the blood out of his body nearly as fast as they can replace it reminds him again of the pain he's been assured he'll experience. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, but he's able to form the name "Gale?" before both men at his side just shake their heads at him.

"They took him straight to surgery, sir. We won't know anything for a while," Thresh tells him.

Suddenly, both his guard and his Chief of Staff grasp his good arm tightly as if to hold him in place. A nurse places a scrap of leather between his teeth and Dr. Lindsey begins a slow countdown from five as she grasps his twisted arm in preparation for the reset. Instead of waiting for 'one,' she jerks the arm back into place on 'two' and Peeta nearly pitches off the gurney, despite the two men doing their damndest to keep him still.

The leather falls from his teeth and his howl of agony resounds throughout the entire main floor of the hospital. It's only slightly less terrifying than his whimpering and begging a moment later when the smell of his burning flesh permeates the room as they begin to cauterize the bullet wound.

* * *

Flashbulbs burst continually, leaving spots in Finnick's eyes as he tries to maintain some decorum in his press room. Finally he simply resorts to yelling.

"I can only answer fourteen or fifteen questions at a time, cripes!" he bellows, and the reporters fall silent. "Thank you. Claudius, then Maura."

"Who'll be taking over the Prime Minister's position?" Templesmith demands. Finnick shakes his head.

"I'd like to remind you all that Prime Minister Boggs has _barely_ been dead a couple of hours. Out of respect for his family and his memory, the Aula won't be speculating on who will be taking over his post. I can tell you that when the time is appropriate, President Mellark will be convening a special Parliamentary head-count to determine the successive Prime Minister."

"Finnick, who's in charge while the President's wounds are being treated? Surely he can't be expected to make executive orders from a hospital bed," Maura Cressida calls out.

Finnick pauses when Beetee sidles up to him and slips him a note. The man's scrawl is hardly legible, and Finnick has to swallow hard before dictating it back to the assembled group.

"The latest word on the President is that he underwent a procedure to reset a dislocated shoulder and repair a bullet hole in his calf. The doctors anticipate that he will make a speedy and complete recovery. Does that answer your question?"

"Resetting bones is usually done under anesthesia!" Caesar Flickerman protests. "Is he unconscious right now? If he's unconscious, who the hell is running the country?"

Finnick grimaces. "The President refused anesthesia. He was lucid while the procedures took place, and is holding counsel with Chief of Staff Abernathy to determine the best course of action to deal with the aftermath of tonight's tragedy."

"He was _conscious_?" Flickerman says with a gasp.

"Yes. One last…Maura, you have a follow-up?"

"Are there any additional fatalities you can confirm at this time?"

"One of the President's Secret Service bodyguards was critically wounded and is currently undergoing surgery. I can't give out his name at this time."

"Why not!?" the woman cries out.

"We haven't located his family yet. I'll be back in one hour, folks," Finnick says, ignoring the continual cries of his name as he leaves the podium and falls in step with Beetee towards the Aula. Both men move as if in a daze, but knowing they still have a job to do keeps them pressing forward.

"You handled that well. According to Haymitch, the President is already demanding to be released against medical advice. He's trying to talk him down, but he thinks he might need our help. We should head over there now," Beetee says quickly.

"Cripes, why the hell did he refuse anesthesia? He must be in agony…" Finnick says with a shake of his head.

"He didn't have another choice with Boggs dead," Beetee says. "Haymitch also said the First Lady is being treated for shock and has been sedated, so no one will be home with Rye save for his guard until one or both of them is released. Hence why the President is so desperate to leave."

"I just need to stop by my office for two seconds. I'll meet you in the driveway, alright?"

Beetee nods as Finnick ducks into his darkened office. He flips on the switch and immediately rounds to his desk and picks up his phone. The number he dials is a speedy, automatic action, and the voice he craves hearing most answers after only two buzzes.

"Finn!?"

"Hi, Annie. I'm alright. How're Noah and the belly?"

* * *

Finnick and Beetee walk into the hospital to find the President's bodyguard attempting to hold him still as Peeta claws wildly at the IVs and tubes shooting out of his body. The sight is gruesome and sad enough to turn both men's stomachs, as well as tear at their hearts.

"Thresh, let go! I need to leave, I need to go home!" the President groans, his voice thick and heavy from the residual pain-killers.

"I can't, Mr. President, you need to lie still. The doctors need to keep you here until…"

"They admitted Delly! I need to go home to Rye, someone needs to be with him, and it should be me…Thresh, please, I need to see my son…"

"Mr. President, Rye is safe and secure in the residence—Agent Everdeen is with him, and Agents Cato and Marvel are in their usual posts outside the front door," Beetee tries to reason with him. "He'll be fine. You need to focus on letting your body recover from the ordeal…"

"I'm fine!" Peeta snaps half-heartedly. "They stopped the bleeding, I just…I need to get out of here!"

"Boy, you touch one of those damned tubes again, I will tie you down myself," Haymitch says, looking the President straight in the eye. "You hear me?"

"Haymitch…"

"I'm not arguing with you on this. You should be in this hospital several days _minimum_ to recover from this, and you've already cowed the doctors into releasing you in the morning. You need to rest, or else they'll go back on that and keep you here like they ought to. Lay back, boy, and stay still for three damn seconds."

Peeta slumps back on the pillows defeatedly and squeezes his eyes together. "How'd the briefing go, Finnick?"

"As well as can be expected, sir. Please don't worry about any of that, it's nothing Beetee and I can't handle," Finnick replies.

The President nods bitterly. "Did they ask about Gale?"

"Yes, sir. Effie is working to contact his next of kin, but it seems his mother works nights. I won't release his name or the specifics of his injuries until she knows," Finnick confirms.

"But he's not dead, right?" Peeta looks pleadingly at Thresh, who shakes his head.

"The doctors assured Thom that his wounds are treatable, but severe. You need to give them time, Mr. President," the guard says.

"Sir, if I may…I'd suggest Haymitch speak at Finnick's next briefing. The country needs to be reminded that there is still a leader, and until you are recovered…I have a short statement readied already," Beetee offers.

"Bold move there, Watts," Haymitch sneers.

"He's right, Haymitch. Give the statement. And tell them that I'll give one sometime tomorrow after I'm released. _After_ I can be in the residence for a few minutes," Peeta says, gritting his teeth through the lingering haze of morphling.

"What else, Mr. President? Anything?" Finnick asks quickly.

"No. The three of you should go back. I'm not going anywhere for several hours, apparently."

"Thank you, sir," Finnick and Beetee say respectfully before filing out the door. Haymitch places his hand on the younger man's shoulder, and looks down at him. For the life of him, Peeta cannot fathom what the look could possibly mean.

"I meant no disrespect, Mr. President. But you need to rest," Haymitch says quietly. Peeta reaches up and cover's his mentor's hand with his own and nods simply.

"Make sure Effie gets in contact with Gale's mother. And keep Johanna close by so Thresh can call the pair of you back if I need you," Peeta replies.

"Thank you, Mr. President," Haymitch says curtly before he slips out the door.

As soon as he's gone, Peeta gives into a crushing sob, wincing as the sharp inhale and exhale of breath makes his entire body ache and throb.

"Sir…Agent Everdeen has a communicuff similar to my own that can project images. The screen is tiny, understand, but if you'd like, I could—" Thresh offers.

"Rye?" Peeta says hopefully, his heart leaping into his throat. "I can see him?"

"In a manner of speaking, sir, yes."

Peeta nods through the hot tears streaming down his face and watches as Thresh fiddles with the dials on the device, speaking in the code all agents use that is mostly gibberish to anyone not SS. He's vaguely aware that he's never, not once, seen Thresh, Gale, or Thom remove the device from their wrist, and so it floors him when Thresh pulls it off his hand like it were a watch and hands it to him.

"I'll be just outside the door so you can have your privacy, Mr. President."

* * *

Rye wakes up in a daze as someone shakes his shoulders. He whines and flips onto his belly, hoping that Daddy and Auntie Delly will just let him sleep. He's so sleepy and his nose is still all stuffy and he just wants to—

"Rye? Rye, I need you to wake up, okay?"

"Whaa...Katniss?" he grumbles.

"Will you wake up, please? Your father...he wants to talk to you..."

The boy sits up and rubs his eyes with his fists. He blinks around the room as he searches for his father but comes up with nothing.

"Where's my Daddy, Katniss? And why do you look so weird?" he asks.

"He's...he's on my communicuff. You're going to talk to him on that, okay? Can I sit with you so you can talk to him?" Katniss gestures for him to scoot over so she can sit against the headboard next to him. He pulls Maysi the cat against his chest and wipes his runny nose with the sleeve of his father's oversized sweatshirt. Katniss fiddles with the device on her wrist before holding it out in front of her; when the tiny screen flickers to life, Rye watches as a miniature picture of his father appears.

"Daddy?" He's probably imagining it because the picture is so tiny, but it _almost_ looks like his daddy is crying.

"Heya, Ry-Ry. Oh, buddy, it's good to see your face." His daddy _definitely_ sounds like he's been crying.

"Daddy, you just saw me a couple hours ago. Why aren't you home yet?"

Despite the tiny picture and his eyes still adjusting to the light of his bedside table, Rye can make out his father hastily wiping his eyes and taking a shaky breath in and out. "Buddy, you haven't watched the television at all since my speech ended, right?"

"No, I was asleep...Daddy, what's wrong? Why do you look so sad?" Rye asks, his own jaw beginning to tremble. His daddy only looks like this when something is the matter.

"I need to...it's okay. Everything is okay now, but I need to..." His daddy can't form complete sentences. This is a bad sign. "Do you remember when we talked about your nightmares? Remember, when you used to think there was a big hairy monster under your bed, and he'd come out when you were asleep to drag you away to someplace me and Auntie Delly couldn't get to you? Remember all that, Ry-Ry?"

Of course Rye remembers. That dream had only begun when he and his daddy had moved to the Capitol for good so Daddy could be the President. He nods, hoping that his father can make that out.

"I need to tell you something, Rye, and you need to listen to me very, very closely. It might scare you, but Katniss is there with you, and I will be too in just a little while. But you need to listen closely, okay?"

"I'm listening, Daddy," the boy says. He clutches his stuffie tighter against his chest and shrinks closer into Katniss's side. He feels her pet his hair tenderly and press her cheek to the crown of his head.

"Sometimes, Ry-Ry...sometimes monsters and nightmares are real. Sometimes people do bad things to other people and people get hurt, and it can be so, so scary."

"Are...are you hurt, Daddy? Is that why you aren't home now?"

On the tiny screen, Rye can see his father nod in confirmation. The little boy begins to cry, despite Katniss gently shushing him and rocking him slowly from side to side.

"I'm okay now, Rye. I'm okay, and Auntie Delly is okay, and just as soon as I can, I'm going to come home to you, I promise, Duck. This is the most important part of this story, and I need you to put on your brave face for me for one more minute so I can tell you this part."

The boy wipes his tears and snotty nose on his sleeve again and nods at his father's face.

"Sometimes monsters and nightmares are real, Rye. But you know what? Even when they are—we still wake up. _We always wake up_. So you're going to go back to sleep now, and when you wake up, you'll find me there waiting for you. I promise, Duck. I'll be there when you wake up," his daddy tells him.

Rye sucks in a deep breath and nods his head. "Daddy, can you sing? I can't go to sleep again unless you sing..."

For a moment, he thinks his father might cry again, but his voice is deep and rumbly and calming, just like it always should be when he sings.

"_Deep in the meadow, under the willow,_  
_A bed of grass, a soft green pillow,_  
_Lay down your head and close your sleepy eyes,_  
_And in the morning, the sun with r-rise…_"

His father's voice breaks with the last line, but amazingly enough, the song doesn't stop. Katniss picks up seamlessly right where Daddy trails off.

"_Here it's safe and here it's warm,_  
_Here the daisies guard you from every harm_  
_Here your dreams are sweet,_  
_And tomorrow brings them true_  
_Here is the place where I love you._"

Rye can tell his father is crying for real now, but he's smiling too, so he supposes it's alright. Katniss presses her cheek to the top of his head again and Rye puts on the brightest, bravest face for his father that he can muster.

"I'm gonna go to sleep again, Daddy. But I'm not 'fraid of nightmares, I promise. I'll see you soon," he says strongly.

"That's my boy, Duckie. I love you, Rye. I love you so much."

"I love you too, Daddy."

The picture fades out, and Rye clings to Katniss's side. She smooths his hair and shushes his gasping little sobs for several minutes more, until the boy more or less cries himself back to sleep. She's turned out the light and is letting herself back into the hallway when he calls out to her with a squeak.

"Katniss, how do you know my Daddy's song?"

Her reply is soft and hesitant. "It used to be _my_ daddy's favorite song to sing, too."

"Will you finish it before you go?"

She seems to hesitate a minute, her shoulders rising and falling and her head beginning to shake back and forth—but a moment later she's back at his side, massaging his upper back lightly with her palm as she continues to sing from where she'd left off.

"_Deep in the meadow, hidden far away,_  
_A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray…_"

* * *

Katniss knows she ought not to, but after Rye falls back to sleep, she pulls up one of the plush chairs next to the bed and watches him, her eyes almost completely adjusted to the darkness. Her hand reaches out and strokes the child's curls every now and again, and when he murmurs in his sleep, she closes her fingers around his tiny hand gripping the cat stuffie close to his face. She knows she ought to have her communicuff tuned to Alpha-One-Three in order to get some sort of handle on what's happened in the meantime, or at the very least, determine why Gale's voice hasn't echoed across the wavelength, but she just can't leave Rye. The clock on the President's bedside table reads almost 4 am when her eyelids begin to droop. She leans forward at the waist and rests her head on the mattress next to Rye, vowing to only rest her eyes for a minute or two, until she's awoken hours later by the bedroom door flying open and Thresh stepping inside.

"Katniss?" Thresh says quietly, narrowing his eyes as the woman leaps to standing, sending the chair she'd been sleeping in toppling backwards. Her neck screams from her awkward sleeping position, and her gaze flits down to Rye's still soundly sleeping form before holding her head high and locking her hands behind her back.

"He's asleep," she whispers. "I realize it's inappropriate for me to—"

She can't possibly continue when the President walks in behind his guard. His skin is ghostly pale, and his right arm is hung in a sling while his left hand clutches an elegant cane as he hobbles into the room. His gaze focuses on Katniss for only a split-second before it shifts, and he drinks in the sight of his sleeping child. A soft whimper of relief escapes his lips as he limps around the bed and kneels on the mattress next to the boy. The President's uninjured hand covers Rye's curls reverently, the pad of his thumb slowly stroking the child's temple before he leans down and presses his lips lightly to his forehead. The sight of the reunion, even when one is fast asleep and dreaming, is enough for Katniss's mouth to go dry, and tears prick at the back of her eyes. The impulse grows when hears the man whisper "Daddy's here," into the child's ear. She looks to Thresh, who appears to be trying to slip out the door slowly. She moves to follow him, understanding at once that this is no place for her now that the President is home, but his shaky, hoarse voice calls out to her and stops her in her tracks.

"You stayed with him all night?" the President asks.

She turns in place and tries not to look at the man's tear-streaked face. "I…yes sir. He's my mark. It was my duty."

"Oh, _Katniss_…thank you…" he murmurs to her.

"Mr. President, I'm sorry, but are you…you look awfully—"

He waves his hand and returns his gaze to Rye's cherubic face. "I made them release me. I shouldn't have, but I don't…I have a country to run and Delly is still… Katniss, do you know about—"

"Peeta," Haymitch Abernathy's voice calls out a moment later. Never before has Katniss heard Abernathy or any of his senior advisors refer to the man as anything but 'Mr. President' or 'sir;' it clearly surprises the President too. What little blood remains in his cheeks drains, leaving them even paler than before. "Leave the boy for a moment and come to the sitting room with me."

It appears to be a spectacular struggle for the President to get to his feet, but he manages it and hobbles after Abernathy with only a few winces and gasps of pain. The elder man holds the door open for the President, but catches Katniss's own gaze. "Agent Everdeen…you ought to come as well. The kiddo will be fine for a couple of minutes."

Her blood turns to ice crystals in her veins, but she follows all the same, watching as Abernathy places a steady hand under the President's elbow to assist his tottering gait. The brief walk to the sitting room seems to take an eternity, but when they walk through the door, Katniss lays eyes upon Thresh, Thom, and Johanna Mason. All three stand straight and tall and share a mutual look of…what _is_ that look? Katniss can't place it, not until she notices the pink tinges in Thresh's eyes, the hastily buttoned blazer of Thom's that doesn't quite hide the huge splotches of deep crimson marring the crisp white of his shirt, and the ever-so-slight tremble of Johanna's jaw. And then all she can feel is something akin to falling, even as she maintains standing ramrod-straight.

"Sir, I'm afraid that I have some bad news for you. You may want to take a seat," Haymitch says. The President sinks into a chair, an unmistakable look of horror etched on his face.

"It's Gale, isn't it?" the President whispers. He doesn't look at Abernathy, but instead at the three guards, none of whom move a muscle. "Johanna? It's Gale, isn't it?" he presses. Johanna appears to bite down on the inside of her cheek—and hard.

"Yes, it's Gale, Mr. President. The staff surgeons were confident that their work to repair the ruptured valve in his chest went as smoothly as it could have, but there was a complication that none of them could have foreseen. It…he began to bleed very rapidly, and by the time they were able to locate the source of the bleeding, he…Peeta, Gale is gone. They pronounced him dead just a few minutes after you left the hospital. I am very, very sorry, son," Haymitch says softly.

Katniss watches in abject horror as the President bows his head and pinches the bridge of his nose just before a racking sob echoes throughout the room. Her gaze flits from Tribute to Tribute, searching all of their faces for some sort of sign that Abernathy might be incorrect or simply playing a cruel joke on the man. She can see in an instant that it's real, very real. Her knees nearly buckle underneath her and an invisible weight begins to crush her chest to the point she's gasping for air. _This can't be real_, she thinks. _This can't possibly be real._

Katniss watches as the President finally looks up, his eyes red-rimmed and his cheeks damp; he seems to be seeking someone out other than Abernathy, and finally his gaze settles on Johanna. Katniss watches as Johanna breaks formation with Thresh and Thom and steps forward, swiping at her own eyes angrily before clearing her throat.

"Mr. President, I am so, so sorry…" Johanna begins, but the President cuts her off with a wave of his hand.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Johanna," he stammers sadly, and Johanna nods quickly before stepping back amongst her fellow Tributes. The President seeks out Abernathy again, and the older man leans down so the younger can whisper something in his ear. Abernathy nods first at the President, then the Tributes to gesture they ought to leave the room—all except Katniss.

With a final consoling cup to the President's shoulder, Haymitch walks out of the room, the guards filing quickly behind him. Katniss stands there in utter and complete disbelief. _This can't be real_, her brain repeats._ There must be some mistake. There must be..._

"Katniss..." the President croaks. "I...I need your letter."

She blinks at him, completely overwhelmed and utterly baffled. "I'm sorry, sir? I don't..."

"A letter of resignation. From you. I need you to quit, Katniss. I think it'd be for the best if you were no longer Rye's guard."

She rears back. Not ten minutes ago, he was thanking her for staying at Rye's side all night, keeping him safe. Why would he ask...?

"Mr. President, I don't understand. Have I done something wrong?"

He turns to her, and the look on his face is one which might have her believe she's sprouted a second head without knowing it. He shakes his head indignantly, wiping at the tears rolling down his face with the back of his hand.

"I can't _breathe_ around you, Katniss!" he exclaims, his voice breaking and his tone incredulous. "I can't look at you without thinking any number of thoughts I should never, ever think of in regards to my son's guard! And the other night, in the art room, I could have murdered Finnick for interrupting us! I cannot _breathe_ around you. And if this had happened to you... Oh, damn it all..."

He is in front of her in an instant, his unbandaged hand reaching for her, cupping under her jaw to tilt her face up, and the next second, his lips are flush with hers. She gasps, but it catches in her chest and air is almost impossible to find. His mouth claims hers so utterly, so completely that she forgets for a moment what it is to not have have his salty, chapped lips fused to her dry, pliant ones. She hears him whimper when her hands reflexively circle his broad shoulders and her fingers link behind the back of his neck. It brings them infinitely closer, their chests and stomachs and legs flush as their mouths continue to slant and slide together sinuously. She can feel herself becoming almost delirious with the lack of oxygen in her lungs, but no part of her cares. Not with the Pres—with _Peeta_ kissing her.

The velvety tip of his tongue is tracing the seam of her lips when he suddenly wrenches away, their mouths popping loudly as they separate. Peeta whirls around looking wide-eyed at the door. Katniss follows his gaze and sees a gaping Delly Cartwright looking back.

"Dell..." Peeta squeaks.

"I just got back. Rye's awake, and he's crying because he doesn't know where you are. You should..."

The President moves faster than Katniss believes is prudent in his condition, clutching the cane like a lifeline as he hobbles past his sister and down the hallway, leaving the two women alone. With one more look at Katniss, Delly turns as well, moving to follow her brother when Katniss cries out on impulse, "Madam First Lady!"

Delly turns and sighs deeply. For a second, Katniss thinks she might be smiling, but surely she's mistaken.

"He's my _brother_, Katniss. _Not_ my husband."

She offers nothing else before disappearing. And suddenly, without understanding exactly what she's feeling and why, Katniss ghosts her fingertips over her swollen, slightly moistened lips, and begins to weep.

* * *

**A/N:_ Some technical notes:_**

**-"Kill Monsters in the Rain" is my very favorite song by a band called Steel Train. Its lyrics directly inspired Peeta's explanation of the shooting to Rye, so do give it a listen.**

**-I am _not _a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. The injuries sustained by Peeta, as well as those that killed Boggs and Gale are intentionally vague for that very reason.**

**-This story arc is based off the first season finale of _The West Wing _(_"What Kind of Day Has it Been"_), and a few lines and scenes from the first two episodes ("_In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, parts One and Two_") of the second season were borrowed for this chapter. **

**-When Finnick asks Annie on the phone about 'Noah and the belly', he's referring to Annie's earlier mentioned pregnancy, as well as a second, older child the two have. Noah is, in fact, Finnick's son in my dear friend _haka-nai_'s collection of Odesta/Everlark/Gadge stories _Balancing Equations_, and very closely inspired little Rye for this story. **

_**Personal notes:**_

**-I continue to be nothing but humbled and thrilled with the response this story is receiving. I am so, so happy you all are enjoying it so - and I truly hope Everlark's first kiss was not disappointing after the slow burn that drove so many of you (and my betas and myself!) a little crazy! I adore hearing from you all here and on Tumblr, so please don't be strangers. I cannot wait to hear what you all think of this chapter in particular!**

**-This story would in no way be what it is without the incredible beta-work, love, and support of _sohypothetically_, _meggiemellark_, and _Court81981_. Thank you ladies for looking up what actually would happen to the tibia in the event of a bullet going through it, reminding me to swap passive voice for active, and for holding my hand while I finally got Everlark locking lips! If any of you have somehow missed stories like _Girls Night Out, Dissonance, _or _One by One,_ please check them out - my girls are three _seriously_ talented writers whom I aspire to emulate with every one of my own words.**

**-Finally, while President!Peeta is always high priority in my writing schedule, I am also currently in the midst of finishing _Flesh and Bone _(which I co-author with _meggiemellark_) as well as plotting and writing a Holiday Exchange Fic for Ao3, so please do bear with me if chapters take a little longer to come between now and the end of the year. I promise there is a _lot _of Everlark and Rye goodness still to come in this one, and my next chapter won't be too terribly far behind!**

_**Happy reading (and watching of **_**Catching****Fire**_** next week!) as always; thank you, thank you,**_**thank you**_** for all your support!**_


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